SVS Securities - shut down?

My2penneth

Written to my MP (Mark Garnier) and asked him to liase with D Raab.

Dear Mark 

Your colleague Mr Raab may well be aware of the troubles that many UK investors have been having with a Russian backed company called ITI Capital Ltd.

 

https://iticapital.com/

 

The background to this is that the Financial Conduct Authority closed down a share trading broker called "SVS Securities" and the special administrator subsequently transferred the accounts to ITI Capital.

 

Investors were supposed to have access to their funds on 23rd/24th July 2020 via the ITI Capital platform.

 

 

This go live date was not met and investors did not have access to their funds until the start of September (some still don't have access).

 

Trying to contact anyone at ITI Capital has been extremely difficult, emails, voicemails and complaints (email and internal) are generally unanswered.

 

 

Of equal concern, is that Account balances are incorrect and do not reflect a true state of affairs. ITI Capital took receipt of our shares before the go live date and the content and quantities were correct. Initially, prior to July, shares and cash were placed in a temporary "on boarding" account with a view to transferring assets to a trading platform.

 

Over the weeks we have seen that serious discrepancies have appeared between  the two accounts with shares missing, counted twice, shares added to accounts as a negative number, account balances effectively zero on some days.

 

 

Other complaints involve their handling of  Dividends from shares which are not visible (HMRC will need to be advised of dividends when it comes to tax returns).

 

 

ITI Capital have also reneged on their promise to honour reduced trading charges and I have noted overcharges. I complained about these overcharges on my accounts (I listed account numbers) and ITI Capital responded by closing my wife's accounts! 

 

 

Transfer requests to move away from ITI Capital  initiated via other brokers (the correct UK method to mover accounts) have been lost. 

 

Documents containing name & addresses and financial account details have not been located, despite being sent "signed for" Royal Mail delivery (GDPR issues come to mind?).

 

Some views from frustrated customers are tendered here on the Martin Lewis MoneySavingsExpert website.

 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6032496/svs-securities-shut-down/p391

 

Of course, the matter has been raised by many customers to the FCA but they are marking time along with the Financial Ombudsman. I bring this to your attention as ITI Capital

 

will soon be introducing charges on accounts.

 

I am really surprised that a financial company can operate in this manner in the UK. If this could be brought up or you could apply pressure from your end I would be grateful. 

If you want to copy this to your MP to raise the matter - please go ahead!!!

Jamesram

Monsieur _Bourse  wrote "On Monday I done something that I said that I would not do...." Well really M. Bourse these are not the grammatical standards that we have come to expect on this thread, whether in English or Russian  (previous posts refer) I suppose we  have to make allowances for our EU friends, but do please try.

Turning to your query, as no one else has bothered, I will have a go:

You say "I now have to ask what may seem like a dumb question, but how on earth does the Phoenix account work? All my shares are showing correctly today and I was going to try a dummy sale on one of my shares, but all I can pull down is an order ticket, which which only gives the option of a sell or buy order, no definitive buy and sell price. Can anyone help?"

Answer I believe they are operating a "best price obtainable " system where your sale/ purchase instruction is logged (probably with other people's instrucions for the same stock) and the ITI trader tries to make the best price they can, concludes the trade, and then reports it to you. I have been really put off by this system which seems very uncertain and out of my control, and therefore I have not used it. I expect someone else can give a more echnical explanation as to what occurs.

helencary

Has anyone filled out the closure form? I’m
transferring my account but not sure why they need my bank account details as I want to transfer all money and assets to my other broker. Thank you in advance. 

My2penneth

helencary said:

Has anyone filled out the closure form? I’m
transferring my account but not sure why they need my bank account details as I want to transfer all money and assets to my other broker. Thank you in advance. 

And there's the danger...you told us to close your account  and you also gave us your bank details! 

LEAR1

helencary said:

Has anyone filled out the closure form? I’m
transferring my account but not sure why they need my bank account details as I want to transfer all money and assets to my other broker. Thank you in advance. 

Hi Helen, yes, I did it. Had the same concern as you but I talked to someone actually quite useful (!) at ITI Capital on it who said it was necessary to include the details for the purposes of progressing through the form and downloading it, but that they wouldn't actually use it for the transfer. Makes complete sense, doesn't it!

Anyhow, I did as I was told, but before signing and re-uploading it, I marked clearly in handwriting next to the account details that I did not want the cash transferred to my personal account (as given) but direct to the broker to preserve the ISA tax wrapper. So there can't be any argument on the point later!

gibson81

helencary said:

Has anyone filled out the closure form? I’m
transferring my account but not sure why they need my bank account details as I want to transfer all money and assets to my other broker. Thank you in advance.

I have completed transfer out forms but these are supplied by the broker you are transferring into. You are asking your new broker to complete the transfer. I am hoping my transfers will be shares and cash so I can then email ITI and ask them to close all my accounts once transfers are completed.

manted

helencary said:

Has anyone filled out the closure form? I’m
transferring my account but not sure why they need my bank account details as I want to transfer all money and assets to my other broker. Thank you in advance. 

I agree, it seems absurd to have a form which asks for bank account information when we actually want the cash transferred and kept in the ISA wrapper. My suggestion would be to either minimise the cash you have by purchasing shares using the cash balance or filling up the form with your bank details and hoping for the best. Given the situation i thought it prudent to withdraw the cash to my bank even if that amount lost the ISA wrapper.

Monsieur_Bourse

Thanks for that Jamesram. I am not going nuts then, just like everything else with ITI even the Phoenix trading platform is krap. I personally do not want to sell anything in my portfolio at the moment, but I do not like the system that is on offer, just hope I am transferred out to get away from this awful company as quick as possible, although sadly I am way down the list because I did not instigate account closure at the beginning.

LEAR1

Just received a call from 'Pension Reform' (or perhaps it was 'Pension Revise') asking whether I had 'claimed the money back from SVS, or if it had already gone to ITI Capital'. Who are these charlatans, and even if you thought you might have a chance of pulling the wool over someone's eyes, what kind of question is that!

shawdon

It's "double your money day" today!, yes all accounts are showing as worth double on the dashboard today, except of course the one which has all the shares missing, which is er... zero! One small step forward, good god, ITI are actually showing the accounts correctly as ISA or Brokerage for the first time so at least that is one tiny step forwards!