Platform re-registration - Snail or Cheetah speed?

SnowMan

SnowMan wrote: »

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.

Worse still Sippdeal are now saying that they are not going to refund the £12.50 charge because I had requested the re-registration before the end of March 2013 even though it took many months and didn't complete until after March 2013. That is just outrageous. Had they re-registered in a timely manner (as they are required to do but didn't) then I would have incurred the March platform fee but I would also have been able to move to clean classes much earlier.

A complaint has been registered which I will take to the Financial Ombusdman Service if necessary. I will report back on the outcome.

SnowMan

SnowMan wrote: »

Worse still Sippdeal are now saying that they are not going to refund the £12.50 charge because I had requested the re-registration before the end of March 2013 even though it took many months and didn't complete until after March 2013. That is just outrageous. Had they re-registered in a timely manner (as they are required to do but didn't) then I would have incurred the March platform fee but I would also have been able to move to clean classes much earlier.

A complaint has been registered which I will take to the Financial Ombusdman Service if necessary. I will report back on the outcome.

The quarter 1 custody fee has now been refunded by Sippdeal.

To be fair to Sippdeal they did this promptly after I complained. And the delays that resulted in it taking nearly 3 months to re-register my investments from Fidelity were very much the fault of Fidelity.

SnowMan

Good to hear that the FCA recognise that re-registrations are taking too long.

http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/fca-threatens-action-as-it-warns-re-reg-is-too-slow/2001441.article

Richard_Taylor_(FCA) wrote:

We would consider that what is reasonable here is what is reasonable from the point of view of the customer, not what is convenient for the platform provider.

sabretoothtigger

Took about a month a few years ago

AlwaysLearnin

11 weeks and counting transfering my ISA out of TD Direct...

SnowMan

The FCA review of implementation of platform rules video seems to suggest the answer to the thread title is still snail paced

The fourth area is around re-registration. So we have said, and we expect firms to facilitate a transfer of investments from one platform to another within a reasonable timeframe. And in the course of our work we found more limited progress in this area than we would have expected. So we do want firms to attend to that.

It took 2 months to re-register my investments from Youinvest to ATS recently. For the privilege of me having to exit, as a result of a quadrupling of charges, Youinvest charged me £140 plus a further £9.95 to sell an investment to create some money to pay the ransom.

To further reward themselves for not completing the re-registration in a timely manner Youinvest deducted a further £12.50 platform charge over a month after the transfer was requested (note over a month in, AJ Bell were still asking ATS for information that had already been provided to them by ATS at the beginning of the process according to ATS).

Rollinghome

It seems extra-ordinary with all the criticism the banks get, quite rightly but often for far less, that so many of these outfits still get away with it - not just in the ongoing shambles of re-registration but in generally badly treating and misleading their clients.

Almost makes you feel sorry for bankers - but not quite.

SnowMan

BBC Moneybox on Saturday had an item on the re-registration delays

The programme can be accessed here (item starts at 12 minutes 43 seconds)

talexuser

My experience: I re-registered 3 accounts for very close relatives (and mine from Cavendish/Cofunds) to Cavendish/Fidelity at the beginning of the year.

Those already with Fundsnetwork through eg Best Invest were a breeze - simple intermediary change.

Those with Cofunds were ok generally and took around 6 - 8 weeks, only a couple of funds needed a sell and rebuy, which they have caught up now and is no longer necessary.

Those directly with Invesco Perpetual (historic peps when they held demutualisation shares - don't think we ever paid initial charges!) were a pain because they insisted on ridiculous identity documents before doing anything.

The JO Hambro funds were a pain because they took around a month longer than others because I was told they worked on paper rather than electronically.

The worst were transferring from Close Brothers/Alenbridge who seeemd much less helpful than others eg getting the exact full account no, which is not shown on statements.

Cavendish were fine, no complaints for a low price (compared to most others) service, and did chasing when requested.

The only glitch is one Cofunds account still with £140 of later divis now which still has not gone across automatically which we have to chase... yes, you've guessed it - ex Close Bros/Allenbridge.