The Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments (OBSI) has announced that the payment deadline of membership fees for fiscal 2019 will be on 21 December 2018.
In order to make the payment easy and convenient, the OBSI Board of Directors released the following guidelines:
- To ensure accurate billing, log in onto OBSI’s online firm portal and use the Firm Fee Calculator which will be available to use starting 12 November 2018.
- Once the Firm Fee calculator is active, you will be able to log in, update your reported number of registered reps and generate your firm’s invoice for the upcoming fiscal year. Take note that OBSI does not send out invoices for firm fees.
- Fees are based on the number of representatives at your firm on 1 November 2018.
It is important to remember that fees are set annually by the OBSI Board of Directors in accordance with its corporate bylaws. Given its not-for-profit nature, OBSI’s fees are set on a cost-recovery basis. As such, the institution analyses its budget and allocation of resources among industry sectors. It will then consider issues of fairness and impact on member firms.
One guiding principle OBSI follow is that no sector or registrant category should subsidize another. With this, fees vary every year depending on case volumes from each sector in the previous year. Please go to this link to know more about how fees are determined.
For 2019, fees for participating firms in the portfolio manager and exempt market dealer categories will increase to $155 per advising, associate advising, and dealing representative. This is due to a significant rise in the volume and complexity of complaints for the sector.
For context, fees for the EMD/PM sector were $78 per representative in 2018, $92 in 2017 and $165 in 2016.
If you have any queries, questions, and concerns, please reach out to membership@obsi.ca. OBSI will be sending out further information and instructions regarding the 2019 fee payment process once the Firm Fee Calculator is available on 12 November 2018.
