Scottish Widows S&S ISA - Problems ..

milton1970

@dunstonh yep 👍 

badger09

Sebo027 said:

It is quite common for Fund Managers or Investment Platforms to require an investor to have a General Investment Account if he or she is invested under a Stocks and Shares ISA. Income from the investment is often paid into the General Investment Account. My point is they don't hold the cash "in the ISA."

They are also not restricting you from exiting the fund. They are not restricting your options either, you cannot make them hold your money as cash under a cash ISA if they do not offer cash ISAs as a "product" much like you cannot demand that Curry's sell you a laptop they do not stock.

I could be missing something but it seems like the outcome of both options is the same:

• You will divest from the Scottish Widows Strategic Income / Growth funds;
• You will have the investment sold and cash made available;
• You will have the cash transferred to a new platform with great selection of investments;
• You will be able reinvest the cash in other funds;
• You will maintain the tax-free status of the ISA.

Are you just mad that it's going to take 45 days? 

Without wishing to put words into OP's mouth...
although the outcome, as you've outlined, will be the same, if SW allowed cash to be held inside the ISA, then the conversion to cash could be at a time chosen by OP (or rather OP's parents), rather than at a time dictated by SW's speed of reaction. 

bowlhead99

badger09 said:

Sebo027 said:

It is quite common for Fund Managers or Investment Platforms to require an investor to have a General Investment Account if he or she is invested under a Stocks and Shares ISA. Income from the investment is often paid into the General Investment Account. My point is they don't hold the cash "in the ISA."

They are also not restricting you from exiting the fund. They are not restricting your options either, you cannot make them hold your money as cash under a cash ISA if they do not offer cash ISAs as a "product" much like you cannot demand that Curry's sell you a laptop they do not stock.

I could be missing something but it seems like the outcome of both options is the same:

• You will divest from the Scottish Widows Strategic Income / Growth funds;
• You will have the investment sold and cash made available;
• You will have the cash transferred to a new platform with great selection of investments;
• You will be able reinvest the cash in other funds;
• You will maintain the tax-free status of the ISA.

Are you just mad that it's going to take 45 days? 

Without wishing to put words into OP's mouth...
although the outcome, as you've outlined, will be the same, if SW allowed cash to be held inside the ISA, then the conversion to cash could be at a time chosen by OP (or rather OP's parents), rather than at a time dictated by SW's speed of reaction. 

Well, the first and third replies on the thread suggested that rather than literally holding cash, the OP could simply switch to a cash fund / money market fund, with the practical outcome being the same. OP chose not to engage with that obvious option suggested, and simply keep complaining that SW were being unreasonable for not offering a 'hold a cash balance' option, despite it being something they have never offered since long before he first decided to buy the product.

milton1970

@badger09 - spot on ! ✅✅
@bowlhead99 - IMHO SW are being unreasonable but it seems the SW “platform” is legacy & not flexible enough to cope with a basic customer requirement. As @dunstonh says .. it’s an iPhone 1. FYI I chose not to engage with the “obvious option” as preferred to avoid any SW transaction costs & want to transfer cash so suggestion was not what was required.
Having said this I suspect you have largely missed the point of discussion ... & just added confusion. This was not about whether SW provided facility when investments were taken out (2004) .. but about SW providing a basic option as use of S&S isa options have evolved - you seem to defend SW lack of functionality as much as the SW CSA team! From my experience this week I would not recommend SW to anyone for any type of investments ..

The end

bowlhead99

milton1970 said:

 FYI I chose not to engage with the “obvious option” as preferred to avoid any SW transaction costs & want to transfer cash so suggestion was not what was required.

What were the transaction costs for buying and then later selling a money market fund, achieving your objective of being exposed to cash returns rather than having your money at investment risk while you waited for the transfer out to be initiated?

As your objective was to dispose of the market-linked investments as soon as possible ("divest from the existing holdings ASAP", per your original post), and take cash exposure temporarily, it seemed exactly what was required, rather than not what was required.

If you now decide you will hold the investments after all, up until the transfer point, that makes more sense as a solution than being out of the market for an arbitrary amount of time while the market goes up and down without you, ahead of the cash being transferred. It just wasn't what you had been looking to do, so I thought that a solution from a couple of people of how to do what you wanted to do (divest existing holdings ASAP and remove market risk for a period) within the confines of the SW options available to you, would have at least been acknowledged.

Having said this I suspect you have largely missed the point of discussion 

Forgive me, I had thought the point of discussion per your OP was for the forum members to collectively give you opinions on:
   "This feels unfair - SW appear to be dictating when an investor can exit fund plus restricting customer options & behaviour. 
    Any view on whether this approach is legitimate ?"

The answer was:
- they are not dictating when you can exit the fund you are in - you can do that whenever you like, simply give them a switch instruction.

- they are not restricting 'customer options and behaviour' any more than a shop that doesn't sell Rolexes is 'restricting your options and behaviour' by not being willing to sell you a Rolex. They are continuing to give you the full set of product options as they offered when you selected the product 16 years ago.

- If you wanted different product options you would have moved to a different supplier at some point in the last 16 years, but no it is not "illegitmate" for them to decide not to re-jig their systems and processes to create product options that their customer base is largely not too bothered about. You personally would like the option, but only because you are leaving them and don't want to use their product any more. Why would an investment firm invest money into offering a new product solution that would only be used by people who did not want to buy products from them any more?

The customers using it on the way out don't wish to pay for it because they no longer want SW services at all. So all that product and system development and implementation work is going to do is increase costs for the customers who stay (and who don't need such an option - because for the people who stay, "investing money in investments" is the reason they are using the ISA).

milton1970

Thanks for your opinion @bowlhead99
Try & move on with life .. I have 👍

Notepad_Phil

milton1970 said:

Thanks for your opinion @bowlhead99
Try & move on with life .. I have 👍

Hmmm, given that snidey comment to bowlhead you've obviously not moved on that well...

dunstonh

@bowlhead99 - IMHO SW are being unreasonable but it seems the SW “platform” is legacy & not flexible enough to cope with a basic customer requirement

SW is not a platform.  Its a direct to fund house investment.   

Another thing to note is that you never meant to be able to hold cash in an S&S ISA.    I cannot recall the year it changed but it would have been in the last decade.   It was taxed and only meant to be for very short term pending transactions.

This was not about whether SW provided facility when investments were taken out (2004) .. but about SW providing a basic option as use of S&S isa options have evolved - you seem to defend SW lack of functionality as much as the SW CSA team! 

Most fund houses do not offer a cash facility.  Investing via a fund house is mostly an old fashioned way of investing and is heavily in decline.   Even when you bought the SW investments, platforms existed.   Although they too didnt offer a cash facility within the wrapper back then.    So, it is pretty easy to defend them not offering it.    Development comes at a cost and SW doesnt get the money from Lloyds. 

From my experience this week I would not recommend SW to anyone for any type of investments ..

SW UTs have never been that good. Even when you bought them.  SW as a general provider is a shadow of its former self.  It barely offers anything that would be considered close to market-leading.   It hasn't for over a decade.  Their focus is elsewhere.   Even Lloyds doesnt rate SW much, despite owning them.   Lloyds just got into bed with Blackrock to provide its future investment proposition though the branches.

bowlhead99

Notepad_Phil said:

milton1970 said:

Thanks for your opinion @bowlhead99
Try & move on with life .. I have 👍

Hmmm, given that snidey comment to bowlhead you've obviously not moved on that well...

I suppose the subtlety I'd missed when being told I had "largely missed the point of discussion and just added confusion" was that the real point of the thread was simply to give the OP an outlet to complain about Scottish Widows acting unfairly and illegitimately. Rather than to actually solicit independent opinions on the topic "this feels unfair... any view on whether this approach is legitimate?" or to obtain any practical solutions.

We do get that sort of thing all the time on the forums where people only want to hear a discussion response that backs them up rather than contradicts them. Still, I try to move on with life (after having a quick dig on the way out of course )

msallen

milton1970 said:

Try & move on with life .. I have 👍

Patently untrue!