Suitability Review

What is Suitability?
Until recently, opening a direct brokerage account required that you complete an application form that included details around your investment objectives and your intended approach to self-directed investing (Income, Balanced, Growth, Aggressive Growth).

Registered investment representatives were required to review each of your orders and determine whether or not they were suitable when compared to your specified investment objectives. This is called the Suitability Review.

What changes have been made to the Suitability Review?
On April 10, 2000, securities regulators announced changes to the Suitability Review for registered investment dealers who provide trading services and no investment advice or recommendations. These changes allowed BMO InvestorLine to apply for an exemption from the rules that require us to check the suitability of each trade we process.

How do our clients benefit from changes to the Suitability Review?

Our registered investment representatives will no longer be required to review each of your orders and determine whether or not they are suitable when compared to your specified investment objectives. This means:

• Faster order fills - your orders may be filled more quickly now that we don't have to check each order against your investment objectives
• Better service - registered investment representatives will be freed up from order verification to answer your questions
• Truly independent investor experience - your orders will be placed quickly and accurately, based on your research, knowledge and experience, without being slowed down by someone cross-checking them

When does the change to the Suitability Review occur?

BMO InvestorLine modified our order review process to allow all our clients to fully benefit from changes to the Suitability Review. Effective April 13, 2001 BMO InvestorLine clients must accept the changes to our Suitability Review in order to place trades with us. Between October 12, 2000 and April 12, 2001, we contacted each of our clients by mail to ensure that everyone had the opportunity to accept these changes before we introduced them to our service. We also explained the changes on our web site and gave clients the opportunity to respond online. If you want more details on how this affects your BMO InvestorLine accounts, if you have more questions, or if you are a client and have not already accepted these changes, please call us at 1-877-266-7765.