You were mixing up record date with ex-dividend date. I wrote...

You were mixing up record date with ex-dividend date. I wrote this out before your last post but may as well still share in case it clears it up for anyone else.

To be entitled to the dividend you need to buy shares two business days before the record date. The record date is when they look at the register and check if you are on it so the trade has to have settled. No one really talks about the record date as ex-dividend date is more relevant.

On the ASX the ex-dividend date is the business day before the record date (it used to be two business days before the record date in the days of T3). It is the day that if you buy the shares you won't get the dividend.

If you buy the shares the day before the ex-dividend date you will get the dividend. This is all one really has to remember.

I highly doubt that any broker would (or even could) offer a way to get the rights to dividends without buying two days before the record date. The reason being that the value of a cum-dividend share typically changes when it goes ex-dividend. It would be like a cheat for dividend farming and unfortunately the market isn't that generous.