How To Sell Shares Online Quickly And Easily
Many people find themselves in a position where a little extra cash would be very helpful. Perhaps you want to renovate your home, or you could want to help pay for your child’s education. The most common route to obtaining the necessary funding is to take out a loan or apply for a line of credit based on the amount of equity in your home.
Those can be viable choices, certainly, but they are ultimately just additional forms of debt. If you own shares of a company, there is a better way. You can sell your shares quickly and easily online.
Unsure how to sell shares? It is actually quite simple. In this article, we will walk you through the process of how to sell shares online.
Find the Right Platform
Before you can sell shares online, you must find the right platform. The golden rule here is to ensure that the partner you choose is committed to following the law when selling shares.
This includes online identity verification and contacting the official share registry of the company you are selling shares in for name and contact information matching.
Finding the right platform requires identifying a company that does more than just following the law, though. You will be required to provide important personal and financial information during the sale process. That information must be safeguarded through SSL encryption on the company’s website. If the URL of the site does not include “https,” it is not secured.
Understand the Cost
The decision to sell shares can allow you to tap into the value of your shares without increasing your debt load the way a second mortgage will do. However, the broker you use to sell shares online will take a percentage of the sale as their profit. How much will it cost?
That will vary from broker to broker and even sale to sale, with the value of the sale being a major factor. For instance, if you are selling shares with a total value of less than $10,000, you might pay $100 + GST per share parcel. For sales over $10,000, you might incur an additional brokerage fee of 1% of the total sale price.
Note that you should never be charged upfront to sell your shares. All fees should come off the back end.
The Next Step
Once you have identified the company, you can begin the process required to sell shares. In most cases, this will be what’s called a one-off share sale: the sale of shares by someone who is not an expert investor and who does not follow the ups and downs of the market on a daily basis.
During this part of the process, you will need to provide some specific information, including the following:
Shareholder Reference Number
Sometimes called the SRN, your shareholder reference number is required. If you do not have this number, you cannot sell shares online. It usually begins with the letter “I” and is between 8 and 12 digits in length.
You should be able to locate your SRN in the correspondence from the share registry responsible for managing your shares. If you cannot locate the number, your broker may be able to provide an online search tool that can help you find it.
Proof of Identity
In addition to your SRN, you will need to provide proof of your identity. This should be done completely online, with no need to visit an office or fax/mail a copy of your identifying paperwork to the broker. A valid passport or driver’s license (photo ID only) should be acceptable here. This safeguard is in place to ensure that only legal owners can sell shares online.
Provide Information
Once you have established both your identity and legal ownership of the shares, the next step will be to provide other information. This will include banking information for the account where you want the sale proceeds to be deposited, as well as additional shareholder information.
When you sell shares online, this process should be streamlined and will usually only take about five minutes.
Identity Check
With the identification information you have provided, you will need to submit it to identity verification. Several companies offer this, including GreenID, one of the most secure options used today.
Using advanced technology, the service will verify your identity, including voice authorization and providing details regarding the form of ID you chose to use (passport or driver’s license).
Note that there should be no need for certified copies of identity documents—selling shares online should be simple, fast, and secure.
The Broker Goes to Work
Once you provide your information and verify your identity, your work is done. The broker will now step in and handle the rest of the process. This will include identifying the best market price for your shares.
Clearing Your Funds
Once the sale of your shares has been processed, it will need to be cleared by the Australian Securities Exchange. The timeline here can vary depending on market activity, but it usually takes very little time.
Ready to sell shares? Whether you’ve inherited yours, been given them as part of an IPO on the part of your employer, or purchased them outright only to decide later to sell them, now is the time.
