SVS Securities - shut down?

johnburman

I saw this most sensible post:
Whether there will be "hidden charges" remains to be seen - the cynics like me might suggest that ITI could claim that a particular function performed by ITI is not equivalent to that offered by SVS so the charge imposed will be at ITI's rate. 
Now i am truying to makesens of the claim tha tthe charges of ITI aftert the 3 month period will be about the same or less than SVS as claimed wha tthey are chrging .1% min of £7.50 PLUS a custody fee.  SVS never chargesd a custody fee.  My feeling is that ITI want the sophisiticated trader not the basic XO trader.  My view is to tidy up my accounts and then transfer, unless they get rid of the "custody fee".  PS: I woudl be happy for them not to hold my shares, I want to hold my shares...but with an ISA you can not do that

PPS: I expect the worse but how are ITI's "friendly" service team coping.  Any admin issues yet?

pafpcg

johnburman said:

PPS: I expect the worse but how are ITI's "friendly" service team coping.  Any admin issues yet?

Well, they haven't yet responded to my email to hello@iticapital.com and info@iticapital.com asking for a specific clarification of the registration process (sent 24 hours ago)!

My2penneth

Over the last year I have had dividends build up to a point where I'm considering purchasing shares.  My concern is
(I) I buy new shares in my ISA whilst under ITI Capital management
(2) I subsequently transfer the accounts to iWeb in a month or so time.
I wonder if ITI capital will try to charge a fee for the transfer of the newly acquired shares as they were purchased whilst under ITI's management? 

To play it safe, it might be a case of transferring all assets to iWeb?

masonic

My2penneth said:

Over the last year I have had dividends build up to a point where I'm considering purchasing shares.  My concern is
(I) I buy new shares in my ISA whilst under ITI Capital management
(2) I subsequently transfer the accounts to iWeb in a month or so time.
I wonder if ITI capital will try to charge a fee for the transfer of the newly acquired shares as they were purchased whilst under ITI's management? 

To play it safe, it might be a case of transferring all assets to iWeb?

They have pledged not to charge exit fees for transfers out in the first 6 months. I don't remember reading that this free transfer offer being subject to those taking it up not having used their new ITI accounts within those first 6 months. Why not look up the relevant statement in the distribution plan and see for yourself whether such a condition was specified?

pafpcg

pafpcg said:

johnburman said:

PPS: I expect the worse but how are ITI's "friendly" service team coping.  Any admin issues yet?

Well, they haven't yet responded to my email to hello@iticapital.com and info@iticapital.com asking for a specific clarification of the registration process (sent 24 hours ago)!

A reply to my email to hello@iticapital.com has just been received, so that's a response time of four days (Monday to Friday).
The response wasn't what I was hoping for:  the question I asked ('if we can't do X, what are our options?') was not addressed (the reply was 'you can't do X'!).

pafpcg

masonic said:

My2penneth said:

Over the last year I have had dividends build up to a point where I'm considering purchasing shares.  My concern is
(I) I buy new shares in my ISA whilst under ITI Capital management
(2) I subsequently transfer the accounts to iWeb in a month or so time.
I wonder if ITI capital will try to charge a fee for the transfer of the newly acquired shares as they were purchased whilst under ITI's management? 

To play it safe, it might be a case of transferring all assets to iWeb?

They have pledged not to charge exit fees for transfers out in the first 6 months. I don't remember reading that this free transfer offer being subject to those taking it up not having used their new ITI accounts within those first 6 months. Why not look up the relevant statement in the distribution plan and see for yourself whether such a condition was specified?

Trouble is, it's not explict!  There's room for some ambiguity, so the question can't be answered with certainty.

To save anyone who's interested from having to wade through the documents, here's the relevant clause from the SVS Distribution Plan:
b) following the Settlement Date, to the extent that you instruct ITI either to transfer your cash and/or assets to a third party not associated with ITI within 6 months of the Settlement Date, shall not apply any exit fees or other transaction rates, charges or commissions on such transfers to you, ITI save that ITI shall debit any stamp duty, stamp duty reserve tax or any other transaction tax applicable to any such transfer as required by Applicable Regulations (as defined in the Terms);

Comments:
1. "your cash and/or assets" is not defined - it could be either "cash & assets on the settlement date" or "cash & assets on the date of tranfer to a new platform".
2.  "shall not apply any exit fees" would seem to preclude fees for any new holdings.
3.  The worst case scenario (assuming the transfer out takes place in the first three months) is that ITI could charge SVS fees for a transfer out (£15 per new holding).
4.  A pedantic point:  this issue doesn't just apply to anyone who purchases new share holdings but could also apply to anyone who receives a dividend post-settlement which increases the "cash" holding!  (Since SVS didn't charge for cash withdrawals, this wouldn't be an issue if the transfer out takes place in the first three months).

pafpcg

My2penneth said:

Over the last year I have had dividends build up to a point where I'm considering purchasing shares.  My concern is
(I) I buy new shares in my ISA whilst under ITI Capital management
(2) I subsequently transfer the accounts to iWeb in a month or so time.
I wonder if ITI capital will try to charge a fee for the transfer of the newly acquired shares as they were purchased whilst under ITI's management? 

To play it safe, it might be a case of transferring all assets to iWeb?

To play it safe, just don't create any new share holdings!  In my opinion, even if ITI were to try to charge for any additional holdings, the transfer fees are per holding - you can buy or sell shares in your existing holdings, it shouldn't matter how many shares there are in each holding.  But get a clarification from ITI to settle this issue.

johnburman

I saw this
A reply to my email to hello@iticapital.com has just been received, so that's a response time of four days (Monday to Friday).
The response wasn't what I was hoping for:  the question I asked ('if we can't do X, what are our options?') was not addressed (the reply was 'you can't do X'!).

4 days is simply not acceptable.  They have knonw about this and pendemic permitting they should have staffed up for this.  They ARE MORE EXPENSIVE than SVS for ordinary XO clients; and they are going to leave.
My suggestion to them is to match SVS's fees for, say 12 months, and then inertia will mean people will stay.  Now there is a scramble to get out quick.  And I wonder if they have the staff to cope.

PS.  My wife asked a nice easy question this morning to ITI.   So far no acknowledgement or response.  DOES NOT BODE WELL

dont_look_now

pafpcg said:

Trouble is, it's not explict!  There's room for some ambiguity, so the question can't be answered with certainty.

To save anyone who's interested from having to wade through the documents, here's the relevant clause from the SVS Distribution Plan:
b) following the Settlement Date, to the extent that you instruct ITI either to transfer your cash and/or assets to a third party not associated with ITI within 6 months of the Settlement Date, shall not apply any exit fees or other transaction rates, charges or commissions on such transfers to you, ITI save that ITI shall debit any stamp duty, stamp duty reserve tax or any other transaction tax applicable to any such transfer as required by Applicable Regulations (as defined in the Terms);

Comments:
1. "your cash and/or assets" is not defined - it could be either "cash & assets on the settlement date" or "cash & assets on the date of tranfer to a new platform".

IMHO, you're being over-paranoid here. If "your cash and/or assets" isn't defined, then it isn't a mystery: the words have their ordinary meaning. It's saying they won't apply any exit fees to transfers of cash or assets. Which seems to cover anything you might be asking them to transfer to a third party. Unless perhaps your account contains cash, assets and fairy dust, and you ask them to transfer them all to IWeb; in which case, they might charge for transferring the fairy dust

If I had any assets with SVS/ITI, my main concern about sneaky charges would be that, if I asked for a transfer out early on, but it wasn't complete after 3 months, they might then start charging their holding fees on my assets until the transfer was complete.

pafpcg

dont_look_now said:

pafpcg said:

Trouble is, it's not explict!  There's room for some ambiguity, so the question can't be answered with certainty.

To save anyone who's interested from having to wade through the documents, here's the relevant clause from the SVS Distribution Plan:
b) following the Settlement Date, to the extent that you instruct ITI either to transfer your cash and/or assets to a third party not associated with ITI within 6 months of the Settlement Date, shall not apply any exit fees or other transaction rates, charges or commissions on such transfers to you, ITI save that ITI shall debit any stamp duty, stamp duty reserve tax or any other transaction tax applicable to any such transfer as required by Applicable Regulations (as defined in the Terms);

Comments:
1. "your cash and/or assets" is not defined - it could be either "cash & assets on the settlement date" or "cash & assets on the date of tranfer to a new platform".

IMHO, you're being over-paranoid here.

Of course I'm being paranoid!  Any reputable broker who tried to impose fees with that level of justification would rapidly find itself with very little business with clients looking for a trustable broker platform.  But after twelve months of delays, seemingly glacial progress in this administration process and only days before the long-expected access to our assets, ex-SVS clients are feeling frustrated and easily susceptible to a little paranoia...