Bank employee approved broker list

charoniv

I've just taken a contract with a bank (well my company has) and it means I am covered by their employee investment restrictions (partly insider trading, partly gambling control it seems).

It means that I am only allowed to hold accounts with brokers on their approved list - of about 6 brokers. This applies to funds as well as shares.
Of my brokers only Fidelity is on the list, ii, iweb, hl, bestinvest.... are not.

Also restricted as too the brokers that my IFA is allowed to use so my pension that he deals with will have to move (unless I am willing to make it a managed service of which I receive no prior information - not going to do that). Will mean that I drop my IFA for the duration of the contract and move the pension funds.

I've talked to other people there and they had to move their investments. We are given 10 days to do it but I suspect that's not possible and won't be policed.

Has anyone come across this before and what have they done. It probably means that you should be careful about brokers if you might ever work for a bank.

jamei305

I hope they're paying you enough to make this worthwhile and you're not getting minimum wage for counting coppers.

charoniv

Yes, I get paid enough - but I'm going to discuss reimbursement for this just to be difficult.
Fortunately my last contribution to the hl sipp is over a year ago so I think I don't get penalised for moving that (if it is prohibited).
I was about to move it and contribute more - glad I haven't got round to it yet but it'll have to be done this month.

dunstonh

I deal with several bank employees (including several in the city rather than branch clerks) and they have no restriction when an IFA is used and it is using retail packaged products/investments and not direct holdings (shares etc).

Yours seems massively overkill. Have they actually explained it correctly?

charoniv

I only have a daily opaque document which looks like it is quite recent but that may be updates.

They say anything that I have control, influence or prior/post knowledge of dealing.
It specifically includes index linked funds but a lot of the terminology is non-U.K.
I'm going to talk to the compliance team next week about it.

It doesn't explicitly talk about pension or SIPP but does mention ISA.

Tying to let you guess the bank as I can't state or confirm it's name.
I'm sure you'll have come across it.

Maybe my IFA with L&G drawdown is ok. Maybe I could move my sipp and ISAs to him too?

Flobberchops

As a bank employee I too am (theoretically) restricted from certain investment activity. How could your employer possibly know, though? I say, just make sure you use a second current account to set up the DDs and so on, and proceed to do what the hell you want. Using insider knowledge is obviously cause for severe trouble with your company but it staggers me to think their blacklisting of brokers is justified.

charoniv

They get information from brokers.
It's basically in the interests of everyone in the finance industry to keep on the good side of the big institutions. Let's not mention data protection.
I also wouldn't want to conceal anything on the compliance declaration as that could be far too expensive.
They haven't asked for information about my current accounts - of which there are several already - plus dormant ones.
They do want to know about all my business interests - they've tried a definition of what that means but it's going to be fun.

In the old days when I contracted to banks employees were only allowed an account with that bank and weren't allowed to go overdrawn. So they opened another account with a different bank, got found out, got told off, closed the second account and opened another elsewhere until that was discovered.
Consultants weren't expected to comply with many of the regulations in those days though.

Audaxer

charoniv wrote: »

I've just taken a contract with a bank (well my company has) and it means I am covered by their employee investment restrictions (partly insider trading, partly gambling control it seems).

It sounds very restrictive even for direct employees of the bank let alone somebody or a company with a contract with a bank. If you don't mine me asking, what work does your company do for the bank? When you refer to 'my company', do you mean that you an employee of the company, or are you actually the owner or director of the company?

charoniv

Director/sole employee. I'm not going to use a government term.

Can't say what I do but it is correct that the bank should be concerned how I use the information to which I have access - but compliance is decided by the department I happen to be working in not the role.

dunstonh

It specifically includes index linked funds but a lot of the terminology is non-U.K.

The problem with it not being UK specific is you get inconsistency. For example index linked funds is not type in the UK. You either have ETFs or UT/OEICs or pension funds or life funds. I would expect ETFs to be out but would not expect UT/OEIC, Life or pension funds to be out.

Basically, if the investment needs a broker then you usually find those excluded. Whereas if it doesn't need a broker but is packaged then its fine.

I think you should seek clarification. Maybe their definition of broker doesnt help as your IFA is not a broker for example and the vast majority of what an IFA puts in place is not brokerage either.

george4064

HL not being on the list is a big surprise given that HL are the biggest retail broker/platform in the UK!!!

Somethings not right, double check it with whoever at the company.