A 'share registry' is an organisation that, on behalf of a company, manages the registry of shareholders for that company. The registry has the following responsibilities:

• Recording changes in share ownership

• Issuing shareholding statements

• Manages dividend payments, bonuses and rights issues.

You will need to visit the website of the share registry and create an account in order to instruct them on how to treat your dividends, as well as other corporate actions. Brokers, such as Pearler, do not manage this for you.

It may take up to 2 weeks for the initial investment into a new stock to be registered at the share registry level.

There are three main share registry companies in Australia - Computershare, Link Market Services and BoardRoom.

You can find the responsible registry for a particular holding by clicking on it from your Dashboard under the Dividend reinvestment section as shown below.

If the share registry is not listed there, you can also head to www.asx.com.au and search for the company by code or name using the search bar. The Share registry information can then be found at the bottom-right of the page.