II SIPP charges confusion

fronty

Hey all,

So I've been with II 3 weeks now since transferring my Standard Life SIPP to them (and ditching my IFA). Already I am nearly 9K up so that's a good start.

Unfortunately my bank rejected the first monthly direct debit payment so I have just had to set this up again. No idea why, it took II nearly a week to respond to my enquiry about this.

So I've just made a one-off payment to compensate for the failed DD (as they won't try again now until next month) but I have to say I find their web site really confusing when it comes to their charges. I've messaged them again but thought I'd see if someone here can help me understand.

If I make a one off fund purchase, it says there is a £7.99 commission for each trade. I've just done 2 trades of £100 each, so I don't know if only £92.01 cash is going to be invested for each trade, or if the commission is covered by the trading credits. Or if I'm going to be billed 2 x £7.99 separately along with my monthly charges? The web site is really not very clear.

Now looking at my regular investments, this says the commission is 99p on each trade, and that £99.01 will get invested. But I thought I read somewhere that the trading credits will be used for this, so will the full £100.00 be invested for each trade?

The web site is really confusing as to whether trading credits will be used or not, or whether I'm going to be billed separately.

Can anyone here help me understand all this?

Cheers,

Fronty

bowlhead99

All the plans get £7.99 of trading credit per month as part of the monthly service fee, though the different available plans have a different monthly fee and price per trade.

If you're on a plan where the transaction fee for your order is £7.99 a go, you would have enough credit to pay for the first order but would need to pay for the second.

If you're on a plan where the transaction fee for your order is £3.99 a go, you would get about 2 trades within your credit and would only be paying for the third and beyond.

If you're taking advantage of the regular investing feature so that trades only cost £0.99 each, you'd get lots of them before your credit ran out and you needed to pay.

As you only get £7.99 of credit each month, it's incredibly inefficient to do two trades costing £7.99 each to only invest £200 total, because you will be paying £7.99 out of your own pocket to complete that second trade which is a huge proportion of the invested value. Stick to the 'regular investments' feature, or just do one trade one month and the other another month so that you don't pay extra money out of your own pocket to buy small investments.

LHW99

You get a trading credit of £7.99 with each monthly fees payment
Fees (=Service Plans) are shown here:
https://www.ii.co.uk/our-charges
If you do one-off trades, then any credits used are shown on the confirmation page, and contract notes should also show it. These come under documents when you are logged in, and I think if you go to the transactions page, there are links by any purchase giving that information.

fronty

bowlhead99 wrote: »

As you only get £7.99 of credit each month, it's incredibly inefficient to do two trades costing £7.99 each to only invest £200 total, because you will be paying £7.99 out of your own pocket to complete that second trade which is a huge proportion of the invested value. Stick to the 'regular investments' feature, or just do one trade one month and the other another month so that you don't pay extra money out of your own pocket to buy small investments.

Yes I seem to have fallen into this trap without realising, I only did the 2 trades manually because the direct debit for the regular investment failed. So it looks like I've used up my monthly allowance with just one of these trades. Ah well I'll know for next time.

What is confusing though is how the regular investments page is deducting 99p for each trade, surely that is billed separately so the net investment is the same as the gross amount? Maybe it's just the way they display it.

Albermarle

What is confusing though is how the regular investments page is deducting 99p for each trade

My SIPP does not charge for buying/selling funds so I can not answer your question directly .
However when I buy IT shares/dividends reinvested , the transaction charge ( and the stamp duty of course ) is taken out of my investment, and not from the cash account like the platform charge.

jaybeetoo

fronty wrote: »

Unfortunately my bank rejected the first monthly direct debit payment so I have just had to set this up again. No idea why, it took II nearly a week to respond to my enquiry about this.

When I moved to ii I also had a problem with ii taking the first monthly payment. I have found if you call them they are much more responsive than sending a secure message. Their number is 0345 607 6001