TD Direct Reg Investment ETFs

xemeter

Has anyone got any experience of buying ETFs in the TD Direct Regular Investment Account using the regular investment facility.

I'm having quite a lot of trouble getting a straight answer from TD regarding which ETFs are eligible for the account.

It appears that whichever ETF I enquire about there is some reason why it can't be purchased.

It clearly states on their website:

Benefits
Invest in sterling quoted UK Equities from the FTSE 350, funds and UK-listed Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs).

However, I've been told at various times by different call centre staff that they need to be:

a) Listed on the LSE

b) Quoted in GBP

c) Domiciled in the UK !!!

d) In the FTS350 !!!

e) Not have a dual currency listing


Both (c) and (d) are complete nonsense. There aren't any ETFs in the FTSE 350 and none that I know of that are domiciled in the UK (but I could be wrong on point (d)).

And when you take (e) into account leaves practically nothing available, which to my mind seems like false advertising when they claim; Invest in... UK-listed Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs).

bowlhead99

I'm with TD but don't use the regular investing version of the account. I think the most likely is they need to be LSE listed rather than overseas and they need to be GBP quoted; the idea of the regular monthly investments is that they pool all your orders with everyone else's and do a nice simple trade to bulk buy. If you are using obscure foreign markets or trading in different currencies you wouldn't expect that to be done for £1.50 a pop.

However, I think the 'needs to be in the FTSE 350' is simply a misunderstanding (as for regular shares, that's the criteria, which will be because that type of share has the demand to do a bulk buy and the market liquidity to support it).

Likewise domicile should not make a difference because you don't go to the domicile of a company or fund to buy it, you buy it on a London exchange (example, FTSE 100 firm Randgold Resources is registered in Jersey and FTSE 250 Bwin.Party is in Gibraltar). And as you point out there are no UK domiciled ETFs!

When you say you're 'enquiring about' ETFs, is this after you've tried and failed to add them in your basket online or are you just enquiring whether X would work?

You mention 'not having a dual currency listing' being restrictive but I could see how a fund with one primary ticker but available in multiple currencies on different exchanges or even on the same exchanges could confuse the system if it's only going off the ticker. For example according to iShares brochure:

- iShares MSCI Europe UCITS ETF (Inc), with ticker IMEU is Irish domiciled, does its accounts in Euros and is traded in GBP/EUR/CHF on various exchanges: LSE GBP / Euronext / Xetra / Milan / SIX ; meanwhile:

- iShares MSCI Europe UCITS ETF (Acc) with ticker SMEA is traded in GBP/EUR on various exchanges: LSE GBP / LSE EUR / Euronext / Xetra / Milan / SIX

If the second one is available to buy in EUR in London under literally the same ticker I assume that might confuse the system. But in reality there is probably a different ticker for the EUR version. Certainly I can set up an order to buy either IMEU or SMEA and get a buy price in pounds and pence in my "non regular trading" dealing account.

How many London listed GBP priced ETFs have you tried? Are they 'mainstream' well known providers like ishares, DB xtrackers etc? If you're not getting any luck, and the people on the front line phone support are giving you mixed messages (an ETF monthly purchase scheme is not going to be their key investor base and the exact rules may not be in the call centre script), I'd suggest writing to them and setting out your problem and asking why each of your list of 20 odd UK listed GBP priced ETFs are not allowed...