SVS Securities - shut down?

dont_look_now

A bit of paranoia is fair enough. Just don't over-do it

masonic

pafpcg said:

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).

One of the FCA's key principles of fairness is that if a term is ambiguous, then it should be binding in the most favourable (reasonable) interpretation for the customer. So if no such qualifications or limitations are stated, they could not be enforced.

johnburman

How brokers make money.  This from to-days Times.  I have underlined the salient bits.
It may explain why you do not get the 15 second 'window' on Trading 212 to buy.  But how does that square with the  "best execution" rules?
==============

Robinhood shoots down British move

Robinhood, founded by Vladimir Tenev and Baiju Bhatt, said that it had postponed its British launch indefinitely

BEN MARGOT/AP

An American trading platform that has attracted hype and scrutiny has withdrawn plans to launch its business in Britain.

Robinhood said yesterday that it had postponed its push into the UK “indefinitely” in favour of “refocusing our efforts on strengthening our core business in the US”.

Thousands of British traders had been eager to use the investment app. Since November about 250,000 people had signed up to Robinhood’s British waiting list for the app’s proposed launch this year.

Shares in Hargreaves Lansdown and AJ Bell, two London-listed investment platforms that would have faced competition from Robinhood, rose by 10.1 per cent and 2.8 per cent yesterday.

The California-based financial technology company has shaken up retail trading in the US by not charging commission. It makes its money instead by selling customer orders to high-frequency market makers, charging for margin loans and investing unused money in customers accounts. It was founded seven years ago by Vladimir Tenev and Baiju Bhatt, two Stanford University graduates, and has claimed that it is “democratising finance” with its commission-free business model.

The platform rose to prominence this year as hordes of mainly young amateur traders scrambled to make money from the market volatility caused by the pandemic. The nickname for this new generation of day traders — “Robinhood investors” — has become a familiar phase in the United States. The group was valued at $8.6 billion during a funding round this month and has more than 13 million users.

Robinhood has attracted controversy, however. It faces legal action after a series of outages this year meant that its customers were unable to trade on a crucial day for the stock market.

Robinhood told traders who had joined its British waiting list that instead of launching in the UK it would be making “further investments in our foundational systems”. A spokeswoman said: “A lot has changed in the world over the past few months and we’ve made the difficult decision to postpone our UK launch indefinitely.”

The group, which has about ten employees in Britain, will take down its UK website and close the waiting list.

OAP1952

As a long-time lurker on this thread (thanks everyone), I've plucked up courage to make my first post as I've found out that ITI Capital's requirement for Government-issued photo ID isn't as rigid as they insist, so I thought I'd let others know who might have a similar problem.

I'm old enough to no longer want a passport nor do I have one of those new-fangled photo-ID driving licences, but I do have an SVS account with a substantial share holding so I need to access the account once it's transferred to ITI Capital.  I've been in contact with a helpful lady at ITI Capital who has sent me this:

After liaising with management, they have advised that in place of the photo ID the following will be acceptable;

A government, court or local authority-issued document which incorporates your full name, supported by a second document, either government-issued, or issued by a judicial authority, a public sector body or authority or another FCA-regulated firm in the UK financial services sector, which incorporates:
•    Full name and:-
o    Either residential address
o    Or date of birth

Government-issued documents without a photograph include:
•    Valid (old style) full UK driving license
•    Recent evidence of entitlement to a state or local authority-funded benefit (including housing benefit and council tax benefit), tax credit, pension, educational or other grant.
•    An entitlement letter from the DWP, or a letter from the DWP receipt of a pension
•    Instrument of a court appointment (such as liquidator, or grant of probate)
•    Current council tax demand letter, or statement

Along with a proof of address:
•    Current account/Savings account statement dated within the last 3 months
•    Utility Bill dated within the last 3 months
•    Council tax bill for the current tax period

Once these documents are submitted, a member of the Account Management team will review it and be in touch in due course.

johnburman

There is a 4 day turnaround time for simple queries - not good enough IMO
And the charges of ITI are for shares as below
for bog standard London Stock Exchange - LSE GBP shares 0.1%  Minimum of £12.50  +.25% annual custody fee

How is that in any case cheaper than SVS?   Tehy are always going ot be more expensive than SVS

Sheris

Bunch of cowboys the whole lot, from start to finish, I have been treated like a mushroom, I expect this to carry on for another 6 months, that will be 18 months in total, DISGRACEFUL 

Thrugelmir

johnburman said:

There is a 4 day turnaround time for simple queries - not good enough IMO

You didn't choose them, nor them you. Little point in scaling up customer support until the dust settles. 

rnf11

May I offer my thanks to OAP1952 for a most timely and useful post - as the provision of photo ID issue will be relevant to me too.

meuok

On the subject of moving from ITI, can anyone suggest a broker that's sympathetic to people who wish to deal and have a foreign address (in my case Thailand), this being the reason that I ended up at SVS in the first place.

Also, I have an unsettled sale trade from SVS, made the day before administration. The administrators have told me that I must 'facilitate the sttlement' with ITI.  Does anyone know what that means (I've asked the JSA, but they seem a touch coy in relying), and will I get funded at the contractual price of the current price?

Any advice e appreciated...

bowlhead99

meuok said:

Also, I have an unsettled sale trade from SVS, made the day before administration. The administrators have told me that I must 'facilitate the sttlement' with ITI.  Does anyone know what that means (I've asked the JSA, but they seem a touch coy in relying), and will I get funded at the contractual price of the current price?

Any advice e appreciated...

Basically means you are committed to the sale so you can't just walk away and fail to give up your stock, pretending the unsettled trade never happened. You must let the ITI take the stock from you to settle the trade.

If the stock price has gone up since, that shouldn't be to your benefit because what was agreed was to exchange stock for money at a contractual price and you can't renegotiate the contract upwards just because your broker died while the settlement was pending.

If the stock price has gone down, hopefully you will still get the full proceeds promised and it has likely already been settled. However if the buyer was literally waiting a year to receive the stock without the contract having been on an extended settlement basis then maybe you wouldn't get paid the full amount - but I doubt that's the case, there will just be an unsettled trade in the system needing to be cleared.

Re your being a Thai resident, sorry I have no idea which UK brokers have an appetite for that sort of business (perhaps there are Thai or other international brokers that do).