Fidelity SIPP cash back offer

Alexland

behind_the_sofa wrote: »

What if you are holding US ETFs (which you bought before the PRIIPs regulations made buying them difficult/impossible) on which your annual saving on dividends received without deduction of 15% US withholding tax comes to more than £100? (Or just: more than £55, to account for the difference in capped fees between AJ Bell and Fidelity.)

Similar to bowlhead99's situation this is another complex one and my comment was about taking advantage of the lower Fidelity fee cap for those holding "mainstream exchange traded assets" with an note that "ETF choice on AJ Bell is still a bit better than Fidelity".

Albermarle wrote: »

Fidelity are more competitive for funds when you have £250K on the platform ( and this can be the total of all accounts ) as the service fee drops to 0.2% . Critically this rate applies to all funds and not just the amount above £250K ( like the discounted rates with HL and A J Bell ) and even applies to any other family members.

My SIPP transfer moved me into that customer category so they sent me a letter saying that the reduced 0.2% platform charge would now apply for any funds held by anyone at the same address even though they are only getting £45 pa on ETFs (plus infrequent £10 trades) from me. Our total cost of platform, trades and ETF fund management is less than 0.20% so I doubt that we will start holding funds on Fidelity. If we wanted a low percentage platform fee then we would just go with 0.15% at Vanguard.

Alex

NedS

This thread has me interested in this. I'm currently with HL and invest mostly in IT's with one REIT so the £45 annual cap beat's HL's £200 annual cap and the annual percentage fees are better too on funds. Throw in a £500 switching bonus and what's not to like?

Is there anything stopping me from opening a second SIPP with Fidelity to try them out, and then if I like the service transfer my HL SIPP into my Fidelity SIPP? And if I don't like Fidelity I could view it as a small pot of less than £10K. How much do you need to contribute initially to open an account?

Shedman

If you plan on transferring to Fidelity for the cashback be sure to read the small print of the T&Cs carefully. I transferred my old XO Liberty SIPP but turns out that when I enquired about where my cashback was that as Liberty had been taken over by Embark and Embark are somehow associated with Fidelity so a transfer from them was excluded. It was only a £100 and as I had already received a refund of £185 for the transfer out fees I wasn't too upset but it wasn't that clear about the exclusions.

I will say however that the lady I spoke to when I chased the cashback was very helpful, said she'd look into it personally and rang me back at least three times over the course of the following 10 days to say that it was still being investigated and that I hadn't been forgotten and was very apologetic when she called me back to say I wasn't eligible so top marks for customer service.

Still..I'm happy with £45 p.a fees and no drawdown costs and being over £200 a year better off than with XO so I would give Fidelity a thumbs up.

Albermarle

Is there anything stopping me from opening a second SIPP with Fidelity to try them out, and then if I like the service transfer my HL SIPP into my Fidelity SIPP?

You can open as many SIPPS as you like .
An often made comment about Fidelity is that their website is not as good as some others, although it has improved quite a lot recently.
On the other side HL's website is very slick and packed full of info ( if you need it )
For most people the practical difference in reality will not be very much, and you can still check out fund info on HL's website , even if you are not a member .
My experience with Fidelity is good, and as already mentioned the customer service people are good and seem quite knowledgeable/experienced.

Alexland

Wow - a Fidelity Wealth advisor provided a lovely helpful response to my secure message within 24 hours and reminded me that they have a special freephone number that I am now eligible to use in future.

Before my latest transfer when I was only a Personal Investing customer it would take Fidelity a week, if at all, to reply to queries about our accounts. Their differentiated service quality even seems to extend to how they handle secure messages.

This reminds me of when I was given access to the special Santander Select phone number.

Alex

Lomcevak

Alexland wrote: »

Wow - a Fidelity Wealth advisor provided a lovely helpful response to my secure message within 24 hours and reminded me that they have a special freephone number that I am now eligible to use in future.

Before my latest transfer when I was only a Personal Investing customer it would take Fidelity a week, if at all, to reply to queries about our accounts. Their differentiated service quality even seems to extend to how they handle secure messages.

Just to confirm, that's because you're above the £250K threshold, right? I'm all-ETF so Fidelity works well for me and my SIPP there is about to go past £250K - although the ups and downs of the market will likely bounce me below it again from time to time in the event of any correction - but the current painfully slow (and often not very helpful) reply to messages is one of my main frustrations, and it would be nice if I'm about to qualify for something quicker!

Annoyingly my company DC pension is also with Fidelity and shows up when I log in, but despite the combined value of SIPP and DC being over £400k the company component doesn't seem to count towards the £250k threshold.

Alexland

Yes although the Wealth upgrade didn't happen immediately after the SIPP account valuation exceeded 250k. That may account for the differing service quality perceptions above and why I was still getting the poor secure message experience when chasing the transfer cashback.

We also have workplace pensions with Fidelity Life that shows when we login but they dont count that towards the Wealth threshold. Our company has chosen a new pension provider so our workplace pensions will be transferring out of Fidelity soon leaving around £400k across our two £45 SIPPs, so an average platform fee of just 0.02%.

We don't intend putting any more money into Fidelity but just leave it to grow for a couple of decades until we can hopefully retire early and drone on about how unfair the LTA has become..

Alex

Albermarle

Before my latest transfer when I was only a Personal Investing customer it would take Fidelity a week, if at all, to reply to queries about our accounts

I have never had a response later than 48 hours to a secure message ( and I am a personal investing customer ) and the phone is answered wihin a few rings usually .
So either you have been unlucky or have been asking difficult to answer questions;)

Stargunner

Alexland wrote: »

leaving around £400k across our two £45 SIPPs, so an average platform fee of just 0.02%.
Alex

I believe that the £45 annual service charge is only for holdings up to £7500 and for your amount the annual charge is 0.2% (around £800) which is still a competitive rate though

Lomcevak

Stargunner wrote: »

I believe that the £45 annual service charge is only for holdings up to £7500 and for your amount the annual charge is 0.2% (around £800) which is still a competitive rate though

Depends what you hold - for ETFs the service charge is capped at £45/pa (charged as £3.75 per month), that's what I pay for an approx £240k ETF portfolio.