SVS Securities - shut down?

johnburman

Hold on just in from ITI

Following on from our email yesterday we have a planned Server upgrade today at 11:00 AM GMT. During which time you will be unable to access our platform and onboarding services.

We anticipate that this upgrade will take 1 hour and should be ready by 12:00 PM GMT.

We appreciate your patience during this period and hope to return your services as soon as possible to provide you with a better trading experience.
1   We are on BST
2  one hours notice of this
3  how come a major server upgrade in the middle of a huge (for them) onbording exercise.

olderbutnowiser

johnburman said:

BUT if they can't onboard us properly, how are they going to transfer us out properly?

Who knows but at least we will have our own broker batting for us when they get around to it! However I am not expecting to have access before October. Anything sooner and I'd be delighted.

Thrugelmir

pafpcg said:

bowlhead99 said:

.......
Looking on the bright side - if they had started the process some months earlier, some customers would have got their assets back just in time to sell them at the bottom of a covid-induced panic in mid March, while the ongoing delay has allowed the market to recover somewhat before normal access was restored [ducks and runs]

Gosh, Bowlhead, I never took you for an optimist!  Aren't you assuming that the market will remain high until ex-SVS client are actually able to start transactions?  That could be weeks, maybe months away!  What if ITI collapses when it becomes clear that their systems cannot complete "on boarding" or FCA step-in again and LC get to rerun Special Administration? What will the market be doing in 2021?

Bet ITI wished that they had never pitched for the business if they knew what was heading their way.  Perhaps also why others had no interest in attempting the task. 

pafpcg

johnburman said:

Hold on just in from ITI

Following on from our email yesterday we have a planned Server upgrade today at 11:00 AM GMT. During which time you will be unable to access our platform and onboarding services.

We anticipate that this upgrade will take 1 hour and should be ready by 12:00 PM GMT.

We appreciate your patience during this period and hope to return your services as soon as possible to provide you with a better trading experience.
1   We are on BST
2  one hours notice of this
3  how come a major server upgrade in the middle of a huge (for them) onbording exercise.

Because they've discovered that their existing IT infrastructure can't cope.  Credit to them for implementing an upgrade within days, but it does indicate that their simulation tests in May/June/July were deficient.

And while we're on the IT issues, I've received a personalised apology email from ITI this morning containing this nugget: "Due to the volume of e-mails, they are being distributed in batches.  As the e-mails were batched at random, I am unable to determine the batch that your e-mail is grouped in." 

Now, I've done a few data conversion exercises in my time and I've never transferred batches of data records selected at random.  Obviously, one tests initially using random records and then test the full data-set, but for the actual transfer, I've always done it by dividing the data-set into categories with some commonality and starting with the simplest (less likely to fail).  In this transfer from the SVS data-base, I'd have started with the non-ISA X-O trading accounts of non-corporate single-name clients with only cash (no equity holdings), then the clients with only equity holdings (no cash) before doing clients with both cash and equity holdings.  Then I'd repeat the process for the ISA accounts, then the non-corporate joint accounts, then corporate accounts, before finally addressing the advised client accounts and the (probable) nightmare of the FX clients.

To complete the criticsm of ITI's approach, I would have treated the data transfer as a parallel task to the process of registering clients' accounts with all the ID checks which could have started in June and been finished before enabling client access to their holdings.

gibson81

pafpcg said:

johnburman said:

Hold on just in from ITI

Following on from our email yesterday we have a planned Server upgrade today at 11:00 AM GMT. During which time you will be unable to access our platform and onboarding services.

We anticipate that this upgrade will take 1 hour and should be ready by 12:00 PM GMT.

We appreciate your patience during this period and hope to return your services as soon as possible to provide you with a better trading experience.
1   We are on BST
2  one hours notice of this
3  how come a major server upgrade in the middle of a huge (for them) onbording exercise.

Because they've discovered that their existing IT infrastructure can't cope.  Credit to them for implementing an upgrade within days, but it does indicate that their simulation tests in May/June/July were deficient.

And while we're on the IT issues, I've received a personalised apology email from ITI this morning containing this nugget: "Due to the volume of e-mails, they are being distributed in batches.  As the e-mails were batched at random, I am unable to determine the batch that your e-mail is grouped in." 

Now, I've done a few data conversion exercises in my time and I've never transferred batches of data records selected at random.  Obviously, one tests initially using random records and then test the full data-set, but for the actual transfer, I've always done it by dividing the data-set into categories with some commonality and starting with the simplest (less likely to fail).  In this transfer from the SVS data-base, I'd have started with the non-ISA X-O trading accounts of non-corporate single-name clients with only cash (no equity holdings), then the clients with only equity holdings (no cash) before doing clients with both cash and equity holdings.  Then I'd repeat the process for the ISA accounts, then the non-corporate joint accounts, then corporate accounts, before finally addressing the advised client accounts and the (probable) nightmare of the FX clients.

Sounds like you would have done a better job than ITI 

shiznit76

how long is the period we can transfer away fee from ITI?

pafpcg

shiznit76 said:

how long is the period we can transfer away free from ITI?

Six months (January 2021)

My2penneth

shiznit76 said:

how long is the period we can transfer away fee from ITI?

Its 6 months from last Thursday.  I have that in writing from LC.

( I've already sent my iWeb transfer form). As soon as I get my wife's on boarding and account numbers  I will initiate transfer to Interactive Investors. 

shiznit76

I've signed up with Iweb but was holding off transferring until the onboarding had been completed

rugby7170

pafpcg said:

shiznit76 said:

how long is the period we can transfer away free from ITI?

Six months (January 2021)

So if it takes them more than 6 months to sort out their system , we have to pay a fee. Maybe that was the scam all along !