How long does it take SIPP payments to 'show' in YOUR account?

MadMat

I'm with HL - the Direct Debit leaves my bank on 7th of the month and shows up as cash in my SIPP the next working day.

HMRCs contribution shows up around 12 weeks later

Mat

silvermum

Thanks folks. I've never had any problems with monthly direct debits - they go through fine. This was a one-off top up to 'fill up' my SIPP before the end of the tax year.

Anyway after another conversation yesterday I resent them the contribution form and supposedly it has been escalated and will be in my account by the end of the week. We'll see....

EdGasket

Immediate with AJ Bell when paying by debit card. The extra 25% top up can take up to 2 months depending on at what time in the month you made your payment.

II seem a bit Micky Mouse judging by people's experiences. I really hope the takeover of TD Directs sharedealing doesn't go ahead; been quiet on that front for a long time now.

silvermum

Yes - II were very flaky a few years back, but then seemed to get much, much better. I don't know if it co-incided with them taking on Telegraph Investor business. But then occasionally something like this happens and it all seems a bit pants again! Paper forms by mail and no proper case management on the phones!
The cost saving was simply to great to ignore in my case though, so I'm resigned to chasing occasionally. I find that enquiring about how to make a formal complaint tends to speed things along...

bowlhead99

I'm with AJBell Youinvest for SIPP. As mentioned by Ed above, contributions by debit card are available in moments. They also take contributions via a cheque in the post but I've no reason to ever do that, as it's easy to electronically transfer money from any of my bank accounts that have a cheque facility into one that has a debit card with which I can contribute to my SIPP in seconds.

Likewise TD Direct for my ISA will happily take £15 or £15000 by debit card and say thanks this is available for dealing immediately.

On the time taken for tax relief credit, AJ Bell is same as HL and a number of other DIY providers; they publish the policy and it's something like any contributions before [about the fifth] of the month will get claimed from HMRC and made available by the [early 20s] the following month.

I forget the exact dates but if you time the contributions to hit the cut-off (which is what they do with monthly direct debit contributions) it'll be six to seven weeks. If you miss it by a couple of weeks, e.g. paid in today. it would go in their batch with everything else you put in over next couple of weeks and then would be late May before you get your 25% gross up.

It tends to be the platforms that deal with intermediaries (e.g. IFA customers) or the "traditional" insurance company pension firms that are willing to prefund your tax relief and let you invest it. The DIY supermarket firms don't do that because customers are shopping on platform price and it would cost them money to finance it.

You could do the maths on effect on returns - if the investments deliver 6% a year, that's 0.5% a month, so a 1.5 month wait on every contribution you ever make is getting on for a 0.75% "cost" in terms of the two month wait for investments to be possible. But that's only on 20% of your gross contributions and the other 80% is immediate. So the drag is 20% of 0.75%, which is 0.15% of the year's contributions.

And then you could extend the logic to say If the contributions in a particular year are a fifth of your total holding at that time, then you can consider the 0.15% cost effect on contributions as an overall 0.03% extra platform fee when comparing your platform to another service which pre-funds your tax relief at their own cost.

AnotherJoe

silvermum wrote: »

No need to be snarky!

I've used HL in the past, so I know their 'gold standard' service is hard to beat, but then given it was costing me £1200 a year more in fees, so it should be!

For regular payments the II process is similar to HL, but this is a one-off lump sum, so perhaps that's the problem. Also I've now discovered that they also have an online contribution form, so will be using that in future!

If there was any snark it was aimed at the platform, not you, it's hardly your fault !!
. I even took care to add a smiley. And then put a downside of HL so the full picture was there.

Jeez.....