SVS Securities - shut down?

sweeter_strudel

sweeter_strudel said:

If you think you have your trading account successfully on-boarded, but your ISA is stuck in limbo, try and open a Phoenix account anyway. You will need one to do any trading.... The advice on here was to switch to the "stable" version once you were up and running as it looked as if it was much simpler to use. 

When you start the Phoenix account opening process you should be instantly emailed a different username and password - I haven't tried any trading yet, but I did login and managed to change their default password to something I can remember. The actual activation of the Phoenix account takes two business days so I should be able to update you with what I find Tuesday lunchtime (ish). Heaven forbid I may even be able to trade!

Should've said - do all this after logging in from your Onboarding link, not the publicly accessible ITI Captial web page.

shawdon

Is anyone else having problems with dividends going missing? Dividends paid after the 18th May client statement date up to early July have been added to the cash balance with ITI but later dividends such as GSK dividends paid on the 9th July appear to be missing and have fallen into a black hole. 4 of my 10 accounts are frozen and the other 6 are still awaiting a welcome email to start the onboarding process which is now nearly 10 days overdue, what a mess!

johnburman

Can anyone get into their new ITI account to-day Saturday?   Mine simply says it can recognise my password.  Which I changed (successfully) but it still did not recognise it!

rnf11

I'm still holding off on progressing the onboarding what with all the growing tales of woe over the last "n" pages. I had been hoping it would all have settled down much more quickly.

On the initial access page after the very first logging in to see the transferred values, there are the options of:-

a)  to accept ITIC terms and thus start the "onboarding"

b)  not to accept the terms. Which it states would cause "account closure" - not further defined.

So my questions are:-

  - Has anyone opted for b) and what actually happened after that?

  - Has anyone gone down the route of not doing the "onboarding" at all but simply initiating a transfer request via another broker and

    actually had that accepted and progressed when duly received by ITIC?

pafpcg

snipkin said:
.......

The only safe way to really own shares - as I understand it - is to get hold of the actual share certificates for all the shares that one owns. It costs more to do this, perhaps it’s not even a service offered by the low cost xo-style brokers, and it is obviously a hassle if you trade often. Is holding the share certificates the best thing to do to ‘sidestep’ any problems with a broker?

.......

Keeping some of your share holdings in certificated form is a valid option for unwrapped accounts but it's not allowed for ISAs.  It works best if you do not intend to sell those shares in the next year or so (ie you're a buy-and-hold investor). 

The advantages are: 
- you are the owner of the shares and your ownership is listed on the share register;
- as the owner of the shares, you have voting rights; 
- you hold in your possession a physical share certificate - there are no custody charges; 
- dividends will be sent on the due date direct to the bank account specified by you or be sent to your address in cheque form.

The disadvantages are:
- you're entirely responsible for the safe custody of the share certificate - if you lose it, that's your problem.  I recommend keeping share certificates, along with other valuable documents such as birth certificates, passports, wills, etc, in a secure, preferably fire-proof, box; 
- if you want to sell the shares, you'll have to send the certificate to a broker by post and wait for a few days whilst the broker transfers ownership of the shares to the broker's nominee account before you can instruct a sale.

All the brokers I've had dealings with in the last decade or so, including the low-cost execution-only ones, will allow the certification (or "materialisation" in ITI's language) of shares held in your name at the broker's nominee for a fee, usually in the £20-£30 range.  ITI should be able to "materialise" your share holdings into share certificates for a fee of £50* per holding (see "Equity stock materialisation fee" in the ITI Private Clients Rate Card), but for three months we can certify our holdings at the SVS price of  £15 per holding. 

When it becomes time to sell a certificated holding, all the major execution-only brokers will accept certificates held in your name and most should charge no fee.  ITI would charge a £20 "Equity stock deposit fee" (but the old SVS nil rate for three months).

I have several of my holdings in certificate form as well as in brokers' nominee accounts.  A year ago, I had in fact been considering certificating my largest holding at SVS but was too slow - SVS went into administration before I decided.  Depending on how well ITI recover from the problems of the transfer of our SVS holdings, I may opt to "materialise" that holding rather than rely on a total transfer-out to a more reliable broker.

* I can't see whether ITI fees include or exclude VAT

My2penneth

Well, some good and some bad news..
My accounts are showing GBP.
Share Prices are not accurate ( therefore valuation is nonsense)
Some companies such as Lloyds and BAT must have gone bust overnight as their share price is zero ( that was a joke folks! )
My cash balance has increased since last night ( I took a screenshot)...this might reflect a dividend payment ...I'll check later. 
My dashboard screen says my portfolio is worthless...everything is zeroed out.

Halty2

johnburman said:

Can anyone get into their new ITI account to-day Saturday?   Mine simply says it can recognise my password.  Which I changed (successfully) but it still did not recognise it!

My account is the same, can not get in, tried change of password but still says incorrect.

pafpcg

rnf11 said:

I'm still holding off on progressing the onboarding what with all the growing tales of woe over the last "n" pages. I had been hoping it would all have settled down much more quickly.

On the initial access page after the very first logging in to see the transferred values, there are the options of:-

a)  to accept ITIC terms and thus start the "onboarding"

b)  not to accept the terms. Which it states would cause "account closure" - not further defined.

So my questions are:-

  - Has anyone opted for b) and what actually happened after that?

  - Has anyone gone down the route of not doing the "onboarding" at all but simply initiating a transfer request via another broker and

    actually had that accepted and progressed when duly received by ITIC?

LC seem to be responding to questions about ITI's current offering (remorse for a decision that now looks suspect?).  I think it's a valid question to ask LC: what happens if an ex-SVS client rejects ITI's terms of business?  Or more prosaically, the client cannot get through the "on boarding" procedures?  Will such clients be returned to LC automatically?  And if returned, what will be the status of those accounts?

steverobson1021

What an absolute shambles this SVS saga is.
I am astounded that the FCA/ FSCS have a process in place that takes a year (and counting) for me to have access to MY shares and MY cash.
The intricacies of Nominee holding are not for us as investors to understand.
This is why we have so called regulation to protect the average investor.
I've heard ITI are going 'line by line' to un-ravel the mess. Really? In this IT world both Leonard Curtis and now ITI are firmly in my sights as thoroughly incompetent and unable to organise the proverbial in a brewery. City regulators are equally inept.
We as regular customers have been thoroughly let down by this appalling nightmare.
Someone else said 'lawsuit'
Here here.

EXASPERATEDEXHAUSTED

johnburman said:

Can anyone get into their new ITI account to-day Saturday?   Mine simply says it can recognise my password.  Which I changed (successfully) but it still did not recognise it!

I solved this problem by using the original CRM link, not the public website, to sign in, using the CRM login ID not my email address, and my new password.