ATS/II customers: minimising fees after II takeover

koru

I thought it might be good to have a thread about minimising fees for customers of Alliance Trust Savings who are about to be transferred to Interactive Investor on 14 Oct and who already have an II service plan.

If you already have an II account, you might save on fees, because you will no longer be paying ATS and there might not be any extra cost with II.

As I understand it, a single II service plan covers up to one ISA account, up to one SIPP (though this has an extra £120 charge as well) and more than one IDA. So, assuming you can get the new account linked to your existing plan, the position seems to be:

If your ATS account is an ISA
It is free if you don't already have an ISA on your plan. If you do already have one, transfer the assets from the ex-ATS ISA to the II ISA, then close the ex-ATS ISA. (If the account is a JISA for your child, this won't work so you'll need to pay a second service plan.)

If your ATS account is a SIPP
If you don't already have a SIPP on your plan you will only have to pay the £120 annual SIPP fee, but no extra plan fee. If you do already have one, transfer the assets from the ex-ATS SIPP to the II SIPP.

If your ATS account is an IDA
It is free. (This includes ATS First Steps Accounts held by you on behalf of children.)

The key to all this is to get the transferred ATS accounts connected to your existing service plan. I'm still waiting for II to tell me how to do this.

koru

An unusually quick reply from II:
"You will be able to link the accounts but you will need to do this after
the 14th October when the accounts are fully migrated to Interactive Investor.
It may be worth giving us a call on this date where we can look into getting
this done for you.
The first monthly service plan fee for your migrated ATS will not be taken
until on or around the 10th of November. As long as your accounts are linked by
this time you will not be charged twice."

Alexland

So they are quite happy to charge the same customer twice as a result of this migration until they notice and ask for the accounts to be linked. It wouldn't be that hard to run some queries to identify duplicate customer accounts and rectify them automatically without being prompted. Still that wouldn't be in their commercial interests...

koru

Alexland wrote: »

So they are quite happy to charge the same customer twice as a result of this migration until they notice and ask for the accounts to be linked. It wouldn't be that hard to run some queries to identify duplicate customer accounts and rectify them automatically without being prompted. Still that wouldn't be in their commercial interests...

To be fair to them, once you have set up your new II account for the ATS transfer, it then takes you to a page with lots more information, including a link for existing II customers. This says:
"I’ve already got an account with interactive investor. Can I link everything up?

Yes, you will be able to do this once your portfolio (money and investments) moves on Monday 14 October 2019. There is guide covering your options in the Previous ii customers section of the Welcome area for ATS customers."