The onboarding process included inputting confidential client information, such as clients’ names, social insurance numbers, email addresses, and account numbers onto the WSTI portal.
Wealthsimple Advisor Services maintains that the portal is secure. Nevertheless, it failed to ensure that clients had consented to provide their information to WSTI prior to the onboarding process.
“Between February and August 2019, as part of the Onboarding Process, 20 Approved Persons, including 19 Approved Persons registered with other MFDA Members, provided WSTI with Client Information pertaining to a total of approximately 2,990 clients,” the MFDA said.
The MFDA also said that between April 1 and May 27, 2019, Wealthsimple Advisor Services failed to implement controls and supervision over its onboarding process by “failing to prevent staff of an affiliated company from viewing and accessing the system of another MFDA Member.”
An approved person who wanted to join Wealthsimple Advisor Services was having technical difficulties with the onboarding process, and asked another approved person registered with a different MFDA member for help.
