SVS Securities - shut down?

SteveJohnson56

Thanks for those replies re. Halifax/iWeb.
Is there any difference in the service to justify paying Halifax £12.50 per trade over iWeb £5?
I traded a lot over the last 12 months, could have saved £300-400.

My2penneth

I'm with iWeb. I've rang them "quite" a few times (10?...) chasing the transfer from ITI. I think that I once had to wait 5 minutes to speak to someone but generally it was quicker than that.  I've always got through and not had to hang up.  A couple of times over the last few years the web chat facility has not been available so I phoned instead. The iweb staff seem to be able to contact other team members quickly ( whilst you are on the phone,  putting you on pause for a couple of minutes). Generally I'm happy with Communication with iWeb and their ability to resolve issues ( ITI being an exception)

Dealing ( buying/selling) - no issues, Easy to do with a 15 second window to buy or sell at a displayed price.

Transferring cash - is bidirectional between your linked bank account...easy to operate but equally easy to add funds when you want to withdraw them...operator error, but others have reported that it is easy to send funds in the wrong direction if you are rushing!  Cash takes a couple of days to be received and can be deposited, generally in a few seconds.

People say the website interface is clunky but I think I'd describe it as "easy to use" and works just fine for me.

IWeb produce quarterly reports of your accounts ( SVS didn’t but should have).

I generally buy FTSE companies including ITs....never not been able to buy what I was looking to buy. 

Overall  I've found iWeb to meet my needs and have never had an "ITI experience" with them.  

shiznit76

Contacted Iweb and they have confirmed that my holdings will be transferred on the 18th and all holdings are correct. Light at the end of a very long tunnel?

SteveJohnson56

My2penneth said:

I'm with iWeb. I've rang them "quite" a few times (10?...) chasing the transfer from ITI. I think that I once had to wait 5 minutes to speak to someone but generally it was quicker than that.  I've always got through and not had to hang up.  A couple of times over the last few years the web chat facility has not been available so I phoned instead. The iweb staff seem to be able to contact other team members quickly ( whilst you are on the phone,  putting you on pause for a couple of minutes). Generally I'm happy with Communication with iWeb and their ability to resolve issues ( ITI being an exception)

Dealing ( buying/selling) - no issues, Easy to do with a 15 second window to buy or sell at a displayed price.

Transferring cash - is bidirectional between your linked bank account...easy to operate but equally easy to add funds when you want to withdraw them...operator error, but others have reported that it is easy to send funds in the wrong direction if you are rushing!  Cash takes a couple of days to be received and can be deposited, generally in a few seconds.

People say the website interface is clunky but I think I'd describe it as "easy to use" and works just fine for me.

IWeb produce quarterly reports of your accounts ( SVS didn’t but should have).

I generally buy FTSE companies including ITs....never not been able to buy what I was looking to buy. 

Overall  I've found iWeb to meet my needs and have never had an "ITI experience" with them.  

Thanks again My2p

sweeter_strudel

SteveJohnson56 said:

Thanks for those replies re. Halifax/iWeb.
Is there any difference in the service to justify paying Halifax £12.50 per trade over iWeb £5?
I traded a lot over the last 12 months, could have saved £300-400.

Steve,
Anecdotally across my multiple broker accounts I get a vibe the more expensive brokers get fractional pennies more for you when you sell (and you conversely pay fractionally less when you buy). Suggestion: open an account with iWeb, buy something you already have in your Halifax account and then at the same moment place a sell for an identical amount of stock on both platforms and see how things look.....

The other difference is expensive brokers have all sorts of analysis and portfolio x-ray tools. Cheaper accounts are simply a list of your holdings and a buy and sell button.

I have discovered some like Charles Stanley who don't allow you to set limit orders for more than one day. And another (can't recall who) don't allow you to set a sell limit order say 50% higher than the current price - which is a pain if you have a life to be getting on with but fancy selling an AIM stock on a potential price spike.

shiznit76

are Iweb and Halifax not all under Lloyds banking group?

My2penneth

shiznit76 said:

are Iweb and Halifax not all under Lloyds banking group?

Yes, as per their licence....see page 523.

johnburman

IWeb - as a new client - seems fine for me.  Easy to buy an dsell and you have a 15 second window to make decisions
money transfers are OK [was a problem early on but they soon sorted it out - suggest you transfer a few pounds both ways to check it works].  Cheap and easy , just what ex-SVS clients need.  WARNING: coudl not transfer my AASG ETFs to them.  Thye class these as "complex"...funny as I had no problems transferring to Jarvis.
AS has been pointed out before the MAX compensation per person is £85k in aggregate.  so if you are approaching that figure and are concerned (should not be with iWeb tho']  best split the holding.  Husband and wife each have £85k remember. 

And earlier in the week when trading was busy, iWeb went down...poor show..leads one to wonder about its robustness.
 

SteveJohnson56

sweeter_strudel said:

SteveJohnson56 said:

Thanks for those replies re. Halifax/iWeb.
Is there any difference in the service to justify paying Halifax £12.50 per trade over iWeb £5?
I traded a lot over the last 12 months, could have saved £300-400.

Steve,
Anecdotally across my multiple broker accounts I get a vibe the more expensive brokers get fractional pennies more for you when you sell (and you conversely pay fractionally less when you buy). Suggestion: open an account with iWeb, buy something you already have in your Halifax account and then at the same moment place a sell for an identical amount of stock on both platforms and see how things look.....

The other difference is expensive brokers have all sorts of analysis and portfolio x-ray tools. Cheaper accounts are simply a list of your holdings and a buy and sell button.

I have discovered some like Charles Stanley who don't allow you to set limit orders for more than one day. And another (can't recall who) don't allow you to set a sell limit order say 50% higher than the current price - which is a pain if you have a life to be getting on with but fancy selling an AIM stock on a potential price spike.

Yes I will be comparing trade price quotes between Hali/iWeb if/when the transfer completes.
I find my Halifax and Equiniti accounts offer identical buy/sell price usually.
What I don't like is how they both go to negotiated trade quite often, possibly the trade is outside the NMS or there is a lot of volatility, I'm talking about FTSE350 and small caps, which means multiple trade costs.

Also when the Covid 19 vaccine was announced Both Hali/Equ were virtually unusable all day, same as when the market crashes these cheap and cheerful broker websites go down, unable to trade.
Not sure if more expensive brokers fared any better. I do suspect they might often obtain price improvements which offsets the higher dealing cost.

I also now have a Barclays account transfer in progress(not from ITI)  so  I'll soon be able to compare them as well. It'll be interesting to see how long this transfer takes in comparison to an ITI transfer and whether ITI can justify Covid 19 as an excuse with the FOS.

I recall with SVS quite often I was offered a better price than both Hali/Equiniti when quoted dummy trades or real trades.
And whereas often when the other two would only offer NT, SVS would quote a price though on those occasions the price would be worse that if inside the NMS but the trade would be dealt at that price whereas  NT could be anything depending on broker action/time frame unless a limit was set.
So I generally found SVS was better than both the other two.

shiznit76

I notice on my final response letter it says "ITI Complaint ID 224" , wonder if this is how many complaints (up to mine) that they have had issues these letters to?