Start a transfer out of a S&S ISA first week of March?

tel_

I will transfer out of Vanguard's platform to IWeb shortly now we are approaching the end of the financial year. IWeb states the process will take approximately 8-10 weeks. Is this usually the case from other people's experience? By my calculation, the process should be complete roughly by the end of April/beginning of May.

I am thinking of making my last contribution into Vanguard at the beginning of March, and then instigating a switch shortly after. I'm guessing it's not worth waiting until the beginning of April to do this, as most transfers out probably occur around that time of year. And with Covid, transfers could take even longer currently.

eskbanker

If the purpose of the exercise is to avoid Vanguard's 0.15% annual platform charge then it would probably be worth reflecting on the fact that this is only 0.0125% per month, i.e. if you're talking about £20K that's £2.50 a month, so unlikely to be worth spending too much effort on finessing timescales to the nth degree by trying to second-guess how busy the providers are likely to be and how long it'll take.  Or in short, I agree that it makes sense to crack on and initiate it as soon as you've finished making your 2020/21 contributions!

tel_

eskbanker said:

If the purpose of the exercise is to avoid Vanguard's 0.15% annual platform charge then it would probably be worth reflecting on the fact that this is only 0.0125% per month, i.e. if you're talking about £20K that's £2.50 a month, so unlikely to be worth spending too much effort on finessing timescales to the nth degree by trying to second-guess how busy the providers are likely to be and how long it'll take.  Or in short, I agree that it makes sense to crack on and initiate it as soon as you've finished making your 2020/21 contributions!

A cash ISA will be added in a few months time, and so over time, even the 0.15% will add up to a pretty penny after a while. Secondly, I would like to add a little more diversity to my portfolio. Of which, as we know, Vanguard's platform limits us somewhat.

masonic

FWIW, if the 3 transfers I've done into iWeb over the past 12 months, all of them have completed faster than their estimate, but they have all been transfers in cash from IF ISAs. If you are transferring in specie then 8-10 weeks sounds like a reasonable estimate, though with Vanguard being the fund house and ISA manager, that might speed things up.