Iii

planteria

i am looking at moving from HL to III with my ISA, and potentially SIPP.

any thoughts re. the following?:

1. Financial Safety: is money safe with them?
2. Customer Service Levels: do they sort problems efficiently?
3. Website functionality?
4. Paper copies of trades and holdings?
5. Whether you can invest in US shares?

They certainly look competitive, for larger portfolios, as here:

http://langcatfinancial.co.uk/2014/02/strawberry/

are there any real downsides to III?

http://www.iii.co.uk/help

Linton

planteria wrote: »

1. Financial Safety: is money safe with them?
2. Customer Service Levels: do they sort problems efficiently?
3. Website functionality?
4. Paper copies of trades and holdings?
5. Whether you can invest in US shares?

1) Money should be safe with any regulated platform as customers money must be held independently of the platform company. This is quite different to the banks where you as a depositor are merely one in a long list of creditors should the bank go bust.

2) In my experience - yes

3) Basic but adequate for the purpose. There is everything you need elsewhere on the net ,nothing to stop you continuing to use H-Ls calculators and data.

4) Dont know

5) Yes though I havent used it myself. I will do shortly as they are having a 3 week commision free period to allow people to sell their Vodafone Verizon shares.

I havent found any downsides.

ctdctd

planteria wrote: »

1. Financial Safety: is money safe with them?
You have the same protection as any other regulated broker.
2. Customer Service Levels: do they sort problems efficiently?
Seems fine so far.
3. Website functionality?
Basic but works.
4. Paper copies of trades and holdings?
Not sure - hopefully have paperless option if they do send lots of trees.
5. Whether you can invest in US shares?
Probably as they have a trade free offer on International dealing at the moment.

Downsides
They might put charges up?
Might not be able to cope with extra business?

organic_wanabe

I can't specifically answer your questions as I have just recently completed my transfer forms moving from H-L to II when I hand-delivered them to their spanking new offices in West Regent Street, Glasgow (very nice indeed!). I have contacted them by phone on several occasions and they have been friendly and efficient. On Friday, the day after I handed the forms in they phoned to welcome me and I was given the name of a person to contact in future if I had any queries. They also said they would send me a secure message though I have not yet checked my account.

Over 10 years ago I set up a portfolio on III which contains all the investments held by my DH and I as well as all our Savings/Cash ISAs under the 'Other Assets' category. I have to say that I refer to this daily rather than our linked H-L accounts as it shows everything at a glance. However, I have noted that there is some discussion on the site where people are complaining about changes that have been made (on the Trading Platform I think) but so far it has not affected me in what I do. If it does, in future, then I will keep phoning until they take notice and, if the worst comes to the worst, I can always travel from Edinburgh to Glasgow and harass them in person!

Freecall

ctdctd wrote: »

They might put charges up?

Well they might do, as might any company, although they have publicly stated that they will not do so for 2 years.

amandajc

I sent off my form to transfer my S&S Isa to iii a week ago and so far I am pleased with their service. From my point of view the website appears to do what it needs to do, regular investments can be set up easily and cheaply, their other costs are very competitive and they have arranged for someone to call me tomorrow to answer any questions. So far, so good.

planteria

Thank you all. it is all sounding very positive.

Yes, the other question i had meant to ask is whether they are likely to put up prices any time soon, as there is no good comparing 'old' pricing from one platform with 'new' pricing from an alternative platform.

i suppose the only other matter is the subject discussed here:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4897867

...registered office in London E1, but the Admin address in Glasgow.

zagfles

Linton wrote: »

1) Money should be safe with any regulated platform as customers money must be held independently of the platform company. This is quite different to the banks where you as a depositor are merely one in a long list of creditors should the bank go bust.

I think the main risk is things like the platform being hacked, fraud (possibly an inside job) or software compromised, which results in assets being transferred abroad or used to purchase some useless stock which is then ramped. If the amount taken is significant enough then the platform, which is obviously responsible, may not have enough to refund investors and the amount may be over the FSCS £50k limit.

I don't know how much of a risk this sort of thing is, but would have thought the risk is less with the larger platforms. Not sure of the relative sizes of the platforms, anyone know? Is it even worth worrying about?

planteria

yes, i would be interested in the values held via the various platforms too.

amandajc

I'm not sure that the size of platform, or how much it is worth in monetary terms, is any real indication of how watertight their security is. Any online finance/banking platform worth its salt will employ all the tools they have available to them to secure their site as the alternative (the risk of a security breach) would be disastrous for them from a business point of view. For that reason I'm happy that iii is as safe as any of the other players.

I work in IT and I know for a fact that the most common culprit in security breaches is the person on the other side of the screen who doesn't use a secure password, uses it on multiple platforms/services and then re-enters it without checking when asked to in some phishing scam or other.

Another big risk area is accessing your online banking/finance services over an unsecured wireless hotspot like those provided in coffee shops/hotels.

iii use a two-tiered authentication system (username/password plus random digit from a pin) which is safer than simple username/ password as it is not as vulnerable to keyloggers. I feel as safe on their site as it's possible to be.

zagfles

amandajc wrote: »

I'm not sure that the size of platform, or how much it is worth in monetary terms, is any real indication of how watertight their security is.

You miss the point. It's not that a bigger platform will be more secure, it's that a bigger platform will likely have a greater ability to absorb any losses from fraud. It's probably unlikely a fraud could occur on a large enough scale to threaten the viability of a large platform but maybe it could with a smaller one.