SVS Securities - shut down?

manorhouse

Yes lets keep the ideas coming not forcing anyone to go with them , and great to hear of dangers beforehand .
Like all things its a balance.
I keep hearing about another USA one Robin Hood  they appear to keep delaying there opening in the UK.

bowlhead99

johnburman said:

Platform fees; exit fees; "inactivity" fees are all a no no in my book - I want full transparency on fees and charges. 

So you want to pay nothing for the service of creating an account, keeping your assets in safe custody, customer services, periodic reporting and the handling of corporate actions, and simply pay incremental fees for incremental services on top and hope that those fees are sufficient to keep the broker in business. 

That's fine, and many brokers will offer a menu-based, pay-as-you go model with incremental services attracting incremental fees so that people who do not want those services do not have to cross-subsidise the people who do.

(although I expect to bear a small 'conversion' fee - although why I expect to pay this I really do not know!) 

Yes you do know. It is because you explicitly said you wanted a menu-based pay-as-you-go model with incremental services attracting incremental fees so that people who do not want those services do not have to cross subsidise the people who do. 

It is the way you prefer to engage with a service provider, having a cost for everything you might want to do as and when you want to do it. instead of some higher standard fee which funds services you might not use very often. So, don't complain when you pay something for fx conversion while I don't pay anything for fx conversion because I don't do any fx conversions.

dont_look_now

manorhouse said:

Just one thing not been mentioned on I Web .
The £2 trade plan charge which can add up if you only like setting one day only limits .

Yes, though that charge doesn't apply to ISAs or SIPPs, only to dealing accounts. IWeb are perhaps best suited to an ISA (in which you only buy things priced in £).

johnburman said:

Even so a number of my ETFs pay in $ or even EURO, and so no rip off exchange fees please (although I expect to bear a small 'conversion' fee - although why I expect to pay this I really do not know!)       

Yes, I have had this with IWeb for some ETFs, where they charge 1.5% to convert. Though 1.5% of the dividends isn't nearly as bad as 1.5% of a whole purchase or sale.

johnburman

Ha ha. But seriously, transparent charging, simple offering, reliable. The John Lewis or M&S of yesteryear of brokers. Seems to be limited to iWEB, HL, the Share Centre. Is there not a nice big bank with a sensible offering? 

coyrls

johnburman said:

Seems to be limited to iWEB, HL, the Share Centre. Is there not a nice big bank with a sensible offering? 

"The IWeb Share Dealing Service is operated by Halifax Share Dealing Limited."  Halifax in turn is owned by the Lloyds Banking Group.

johnburman

And I missed out SAXO MARKETS.  Anybody dealt with them?

olderbutnowiser

'Action Fraud Solicitors'

Latest bunch of cowboys who keep spamming me about legal advice for bad investments.

Since SVS went bust and their email and phone lists were leaked, I've had endless spam and cold calls from a variety of dubious entities that after a while gets a bit wearing.

AFS are very persistent, emailing every day. They do have an unsubscribe button but I am a reluctant to hit that as it does of course validate my email address.

I take it I am one of many?

oi_oi_oi

olderbutnowiser said:

'Action Fraud Solicitors'

Latest bunch of cowboys who keep spamming me about legal advice for bad investments.

Since SVS went bust and their email and phone lists were leaked, I've had endless spam and cold calls from a variety of dubious entities that after a while gets a bit wearing.

AFS are very persistent, emailing every day. They do have an unsubscribe button but I am a reluctant to hit that as it does of course validate my email address.

I take it I am one of many?

I've received 2 spams in 2 days from AFS, and this is to an email address which I literally gave to nobody except SVS. And a few dozen other spams to the same address since SVS went bust, most of them about property investments with implausibly high "guaranteed" returns.

Also a few cold calls, which I suspect were from a leak from SVS, though I can't prove that. But from callers who knew my name, and to an ex-directory landline which not that many people know.

manorhouse

"So you want to pay nothing for the service of creating an account, keeping your assets in safe custody, customer services, periodic reporting and the handling of corporate actions, and simply pay incremental fees for incremental services on top and hope that those fees are sufficient to keep the broker in business. 

That's fine, and many brokers will offer a menu-based, pay-as-you go model with incremental services attracting incremental fees so that people who do not want those services do not have to cross-subsidise the people who do."

................................................................................................................................................................
When i read this comment it made me fell a bit sorry for those working in the industry , like other services in life i think having things as cheaply as possible has been the way society has gone.
Look at the care services zero hour contracts ect. 
Great difficulty getting through to my local authority many departments only there Monday and Tuesday 10 untill 2.
Maybe just catching up with these city types .
Has capitalism gone to far ?

dont_look_now

johnburman said:

Ha ha. But seriously, transparent charging, simple offering, reliable. The John Lewis or M&S of yesteryear of brokers. Seems to be limited to iWEB, HL, the Share Centre. Is there not a nice big bank with a sensible offering? 

AJ Bell also works fine for me.

Not used the Share Centre. Nor Saxo.

If you want big banks (besides IWeb/Halifax/Lloyds), you could look at HSBC Investdirect, or the very similar First Direct Sharedealing (also part of HSBC). I haven't used, but appears to have fixed charges of £42 a year (for ISA or dealing account or both together) and then charge reasonable (in my eyes) flat rates for share dealing, and allegedly does FX at very good rates. Requires you to have an HSBC / First Direct current account. Only for shares, not funds (you can hold funds in a different product, HSBC Global Investment Centre, but that has a different, less competitive, charging structure).

Not a bank, but Fidelity are also big, and competitive charges (for dealing account, ISA, and also SIPP) if you only hold shares — less competitive if you hold funds.