Transfers of S&S ISA from HL to II

dmh007

It is now 9 weeks since I requested an S&S ISA transfer from Fidelity to Interactive Investor :-

26th Feb : transfer request received by III
1st Apr : funds left my Fidelity account
10th Apr : cash left Fidelity account and Fidelity account closed
23-25 Apr : made several phone calls to III to chase the outcome being that the bottleneck might be with III's fund provider FNZ.

Currently no funds or cash in my III account will keep you informed of any progress.

Regards,
Kendall

naedanger

wstevew wrote: »

I sent something similar, but forgot to mention "formal complaint" and "FCA", must be the magic words.

I think I may re-try after my fund and cash turns up at the intended destination.

The magic words are definitely "formal complaint". Unless they send you a reply including a copy of their complaints procedure and stating that you have a right to complain to FOS then they have not treated your complaint as a complaint - see posts 17 and 19 of this thread. (This is against FCA rules but it is what they are doing. The same happened to me and a number of others.)

le_loup

Just to add to the general knowledge here, all but one of my funds moved a few weeks ago. On Monday I chased H-L about it. They replied yesterday saying that all the requests went to the fund managers at the same time (no date given). Following my chase, H-L discovered that the last fund manager "had not received the request". H-L are therefor resending.
So it looks like we have to chase because H-L have no system and/or no interest in following up transfer requests to fund managers!
My transfer has been in progress since early February.

Geoffo_M

le_loup wrote: »

Just to add to the general knowledge here, all but one of my funds moved a few weeks ago. On Monday I chased H-L about it. They replied yesterday saying that all the requests went to the fund managers at the same time (no date given). Following my chase, H-L discovered that the last fund manager "had not received the request". H-L are therefor resending.
So it looks like we have to chase because H-L have no system and/or no interest in following up transfer requests to fund managers!
My transfer has been in progress since early February.

Thanks that's interesting, the flaw in the system seems to be that after they've left HL to go to the fund managers, HL are not notifying the destination broker to know what to expect so that if it is never received by the fund manager or sits at the bottom of their pending in-tray, nothing ever gets followed up. Poor system, the more I learn of these financial institutions the less impressive they seem.
We must clearly keep on at HL then to make sure the fund manager's they've sent to are doing their job - grrrr!

le_loup

Well, at least naedanger has been successful - see the other thread.

wstevew

Sent a secure message this morning to HL asking for evidence of completion.

Just got home from work and 2 evelopes from HL


1) confirming all holdings have been transfered and a cheque issued for the cash balance sent to II

2) a cheque for the cash balance of the loyalty bonus account.


Still nothing on the II system today.


From the paperwork from HL today looks like they started the transfer on the 13th March and was complete on the 12th April for the fund (when it stopped showing on HL) and II keep blaming HL have not notified them, and HL saying they have done everything and notified II.

Geoffo_M

le_loup wrote: »

Well, at least naedanger has been successful - see the other thread.

Yes I saw that as well, that's encouraging - let's hope eventually we can all make a similar post

Chordeiles

Now I don't want to seem like an apologist for H-L, right now I am getting some service from them (as I report website bugs) that borders on "surly", and the speed of transferring accounts out (as revealed by this thread) is inexcusable, as are the exorbitant exit fees.

However I believe that it would pay to spend a few evenings getting to understand the changes that the "RDR" legislation has forced onto the industry (and the specific way that H-L have responded to those changes) before rushing off to a new ISA or SIPP provider, screaming "the H-L charges have gone up unacceptably".

As an example my wife has a fund in her SIPP which never before paid a "loyalty bonus" (but will have paid a fee to H-L which has been outlawed by the RDR). That fund now attracts (at H-L) a loyalty bonus of 0.63%, which comfortably covers the new H-L 0.45% fee. As nothing else changed, my wife is therefore paying lower fees.

O.k. so I picked an example where the customer wins, it's also possible to find examples where the customer loses. But on balance we are actually better off. And once the fee structure is grasped there are strategies one can use to reduce fees further. In my case I'm going to major on funds in my SIPP but shares, ITs and ETFs in my ISA. To see why this would help to reduce fees you need to understand the new fee structure.

I know that Fidelity have got headlines for coming up with a charging structure that is cheaper than H-L's, but most comparisons I've seen don't take account of the loyalty bonuses at H-L, which will in many cases tip the balance the other way. But I admit that the way H-L don't take the TOTAL funds (across both SIPP and ISA) in determining the breaks in the price structure will be bad news for investors with a certain level of funds, and I think that this will be reviewed as it drives away a large group of wealthier savers.

So I think that H-L were probably guilty of not explaining the changes well enough (but it is tough, I looked at it for ages before I twigged), and therefore were unprepared for the rush to leave.

le_loup

Oh! I think you've got this so wrong.
H-L ARE charging you less than they were, but still more than any of the others.
One day soon, all loyalty bonuses will stop as they convert you to clean funds, then, perhaps, you will see more clearly what the true comparative costs are.

naedanger

Chordeiles wrote: »

So I think that H-L were probably guilty of not explaining the changes well enough (but it is tough, I looked at it for ages before I twigged), and therefore were unprepared for the rush to leave.

Personally I think HL are excellent at writing their customer communication material. In my view however, they unfortunately put their own commercial interests so far ahead of their duty to treat customers fairly that the letter announcing the changes was highly misleading, although very well written. Admittedly only 20% of customers were worse off under the new charges (on HL's calculations) but I believe that 20% were at significant risk of being badly misled.

I agree everyone should consider their own circumstances carefully and not rush to a decision but it is worth bearing in mind HL's exit charges. Even if you have no intention of exiting remember they may choose to increase their charges in future and still expect you to pay the exit charges. In other words you are tied to the existing terms and any changes they decide on. And if you don't like it, as far as they are concerned, you will either need to grin and bear it or pay their exit charges.