Platform re-registration - Snail or Cheetah speed?

A_J_2

Fidelity advertise "will only take a few minutes to apply" and "aim to complete in 4-6 weeks".
My experience = many hours on the phone and taking Months rather than Weeks.

I submitted a re-registration application to consolidate my ISA funds with Fidelity from L&G at the end Dec 2012 and the process is still not completed! After regularly chasing Fidelity it took until April before I received a communication from L&G stating they had transfered all my holdings to Fidelity, but still nothing appeared in my Fidelity funds. More chasing and about a month later Fidelity even sent me a letter stating they couldn't complete the re-registration as L&G didn't hold any funds for me! More phone calls and apologies for the delay and in just the last week my funds have finally transfered across and are visible/accessible on the Fidelity system - except for one that had to be cashed in as it's not offered by Fidelity Funds Market. L&G transferred out of that fund on May 28th and 10 days later I'm still out of the market as apparently 'funds haven't cleared' - a process which I'm told can take up to 14 days - I'm appalled that when I can transfer funds from my bank in less than 2 hours it still takes two large organisations over 2 weeks to move money.

So assuming this last fund is sorted in the next few days my reregistration will have taken just under 6 months from application to complete - isn't what I'd call "timely". Plus a complete lack of communication through this process from Fidelity hasn't helped either.

My confidence in Fidelity has been shattered - so glad to hear they don't charge to re-register away - just not sure I'm ready to go through that whole process again......

jimjames

That sounds a horrendous move between platforms.

Depending on the fund you were holding you may actually have benefitted in this instance by being out of the market since 28 May as there have been some drops since then.

Mr_Moo_2

Once up and running properly the TEX service will deliver transfers in a much shorter time - probably just over a week and this will become the defacto standard for transfers in a reasonable time as the FCA rules require.

SnowMan

SnowMan wrote: »

My mum put in a request for re-registration of a single fund held directly with the fund manager over to Fidelity Fundsnetwork.

About 3 months later and after many calls to Fidelity the re-registration still hasn't taken place, and she has been given no idea when it will happen.

Timely re-registration? I think not. Quite appalling.

Now 4 months. Despite a complaint going in still no progress :mad:

gettingwiser_2

I requested to re-register my ISAs from Cofunds to Fidelity at the beginning of April and after chasing several times through Cavendish. I was told first Fidelity had lost the paperwork, then they had eventually sent it to Cofunds at the beginning of June. Since then I have chased Fidelity via Cavendish all to no avail.
I was promised anexplanation for the delays from the Fidelity account 'manager' over 4 weeks agobut I am still waiting for that. I have received 5letters with various dates all confirming Fidelity have initiated there-registration from Cofunds. These letters are dated 6th, 10th and 11th of June and one has a completely different Referencenumber. Two duplicate letters with different dates *6th and 10th of June) were sent in the same envelope!

There appears to be aserious problem at Fidelity in providing prompt and accurate informationand I will not use them again.
:exclamati

SnowMan

The Daily Telegraph are now reporting on the re-registration 'delay shambles'.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/10176519/Investors-hit-by-transfer-delay-shambles.html

Unusually the article seems to understate the true length of the delays.

Meanwhile nearly 5 months after the request (and over a month since she formally complained about the delays) still no sign of my mum's re-registration of a single fund held direct appearing in her Fidelity Fundsnetwork account. The timeline of events that is emerging is pointing towards Fidelity being the party responsible for most of the delays.

I hope that the FCA take this shambles on board and fine Fidelity Fundsnetwork who seem to be major culprits, looking at the comments from other articles on this, and also posts in this thread to some extent.

dunstonh

The problem is exacerbated because many companies outsource this type of administration to three major firms – Skandia, Cofunds and Fidelity FundsNetwork.

I dont agree with that as being a reason though. All three of those transact with IFAs and there are no issues reported on the IFA side. I have done a number of transfers using those and not had any problem.

So, if you have companies that transact via IFAs and DIY using third parties and the IFA side is ok but the third party side is not then you have to look at the differences to see where the problem is. It could be that they are favouring the IFA side as that is their major distribution channel. Or it could be that it is the third party company that is causing the delay. These fund supermarkets were all set up to not deal with the public directly but use an intermediary. The third party company should be doing the form filling and the chasing. I suspect that a number of them do the absolute minimum due to their costs and remuneration.

The method can come into play as well. A cash transfer is typically faster than a re-registration. Some of these new re-registration systems are slow.

Totton

That's my experience also, cash transfer is much quicker and I'm only out of the market for just a few days.

agent69

Had £70k in 2 different accounts with Sterling, which I started to transfer to Fundsnetwork in January.

The whole process took about 5 monts, initially with Sterling saying thay had received no correspondence from FN, and then saying that they didn't know when the funds would be released because it was all down to the fund manager,

Glad to be rid of them.

SnowMan

Sippdeal have charged me a £12.50 quarter 1 custody charge even though my re-registrations from Fidelity FundsNetwork and HSBC GIC weren't completed until quarter 2. The quarter 1 custody charge applies to those holding certain non commission paying funds with them on the last working day in March 2013.

I've sent a message to tell them to refund the charge.

However just to warning to others in this position to look out for this error and ask for it be corrected.

All part of the re-registration shambles.