Iweb to II

ivormonee

ChilliBob said:

ivormonee said:

ChilliBob said:

Two reasons:
1. Some investments not on iWeb, that iweb refuse to add.
2. The xray functionality for the portfolio.

It's basically the first mostly. 

Just out of interest, what sorts of investments are they refusing to add? Might be useful to know.

 Then I recall some iShares ETFs, I think perhaps materials or something, which they wouldn't add.

I remember looking at their ETF list some time ago and queried why so many ETFs were not on there but they weren't able to offer any explanation nor commit to adding any requested. Does seem very odd. As for iShares I can't imagine why they wouldn't add those as they are the biggest global provider of ETFs and are generally more liquid and larger than similar ETFs from other providers.

Had another look and can see they still have only a fraction of the number of ETFs that other providers offer, and without any explanation, it's difficult to guess their reasons. Perhaps other members of the forum may know something we don't.

ChilliBob

ivormonee said:

ChilliBob said:

ivormonee said:

ChilliBob said:

Two reasons:
1. Some investments not on iWeb, that iweb refuse to add.
2. The xray functionality for the portfolio.

It's basically the first mostly. 

Just out of interest, what sorts of investments are they refusing to add? Might be useful to know.

 Then I recall some iShares ETFs, I think perhaps materials or something, which they wouldn't add.

I remember looking at their ETF list some time ago and queried why so many ETFs were not on there but they weren't able to offer any explanation nor commit to adding any requested. Does seem very odd. As for iShares I can't imagine why they wouldn't add those as they are the biggest global provider of ETFs and are generally more liquid and larger than similar ETFs from other providers.

Had another look and can see they still have only a fraction of the number of ETFs that other providers offer, and without any explanation, it's difficult to guess their reasons. Perhaps other members of the forum may know something we don't.

In most cases they have said their custodian didn't offer it. In some cases it went to some broker team where they either said there wasn't demand for it, or it wasn't considered for private investors, more for institutions. Both odd when you're talking ishares ETFS of Vaneck ETFS and more besides. 

masonic

ivormonee said:

ChilliBob said:

Two reasons:
1. Some investments not on iWeb, that iweb refuse to add.
2. The xray functionality for the portfolio.

It's basically the first mostly. 

Just out of interest, what sorts of investments are they refusing to add? Might be useful to know.

Generally it is the ones that don't provide cost disclosure documents that meet their internal (high) standards.

ivormonee

ChilliBob said:

ivormonee said:

ChilliBob said:

ivormonee said:

ChilliBob said:

Two reasons:
1. Some investments not on iWeb, that iweb refuse to add.
2. The xray functionality for the portfolio.

It's basically the first mostly. 

Just out of interest, what sorts of investments are they refusing to add? Might be useful to know.

 Then I recall some iShares ETFs, I think perhaps materials or something, which they wouldn't add.

I remember looking at their ETF list some time ago and queried why so many ETFs were not on there but they weren't able to offer any explanation nor commit to adding any requested. Does seem very odd. As for iShares I can't imagine why they wouldn't add those as they are the biggest global provider of ETFs and are generally more liquid and larger than similar ETFs from other providers.

Had another look and can see they still have only a fraction of the number of ETFs that other providers offer, and without any explanation, it's difficult to guess their reasons. Perhaps other members of the forum may know something we don't.

In most cases they have said their custodian didn't offer it. In some cases it went to some broker team where they either said there wasn't demand for it, or it wasn't considered for private investors, more for institutions. Both odd when you're talking ishares ETFS of Vaneck ETFS and more besides. 

With any broker related investments, unless I am mistaken, they are the custodian. The investments for which the custodian function is outsourced to a third party are unit truts and OEICs. So I would understand from this that listing ETFs on their platform, being the custodian themselves, would imply they have full decision making authority on what to hold or otherwise.

I've done a quick check and checked for some ETFs which are aimed at retail customers; they are not available on iWeb (but they are on other platforms) - so I don't believe that the explanation from iWeb that they are aimed at institutional investors is at all valid.

masonic said:

ivormonee said:

ChilliBob said:

Two reasons:
1. Some investments not on iWeb, that iweb refuse to add.
2. The xray functionality for the portfolio.

It's basically the first mostly. 

Just out of interest, what sorts of investments are they refusing to add? Might be useful to know.

Generally it is the ones that don't provide cost disclosure documents that meet their internal (high) standards.

If I understand correctly, some time ago new regulations were introduced requiring that any products made available to retail customers would indeed require such a cost disclosure. This is what the KIID represents. This requirement would apply to all and every platform. If there is no cost disclosure then it can't be made available to retail customers on any platform. The fact then, that the other platforms offer virtually the full range of ETFs suggests that all those ETFs must have the relevant cost disclosure. This then implies that the lack of availability on iWeb cannot be down to any cost disclosure issue.

I just did a quick check on a bunch of ETFs available on some platforms and could see that all, without exception, have the required cost disclosure - yet these ETFs are not available on iWeb.

I'm not sure if we're going to be able to get to the bottom of this. It may be that nobody really knows why iWeb won't/ don't list more than the restricted range of ETFs that they do, only about one third of what's available elsewhere.

ChilliBob

That was my view too, Thematic ETFS, in my view, are squarely aimed at retail investors most of the time! (often to their/our peril!) 

masonic

ivormonee said:

masonic said:

ivormonee said:

ChilliBob said:

Two reasons:
1. Some investments not on iWeb, that iweb refuse to add.
2. The xray functionality for the portfolio.

It's basically the first mostly. 

Just out of interest, what sorts of investments are they refusing to add? Might be useful to know.

Generally it is the ones that don't provide cost disclosure documents that meet their internal (high) standards.

If I understand correctly, some time ago new regulations were introduced requiring that any products made available to retail customers would indeed require such a cost disclosure. This is what the KIID represents. This requirement would apply to all and every platform. If there is no cost disclosure then it can't be made available to retail customers on any platform. The fact then, that the other platforms offer virtually the full range of ETFs suggests that all those ETFs must have the relevant cost disclosure. This then implies that the lack of availability on iWeb cannot be down to any cost disclosure issue.

I just did a quick check on a bunch of ETFs available on some platforms and could see that all, without exception, have the required cost disclosure - yet these ETFs are not available on iWeb.

I'm not sure if we're going to be able to get to the bottom of this. It may be that nobody really knows why iWeb won't/ don't list more than the restricted range of ETFs that they do, only about one third of what's available elsewhere.

The trouble is that that the regulations are open to interpretation and HSDL (operators of iWeb brand) have interpreted them in a way that some cost disclosures, and other regulatory factors, do not meet their internal criteria. There have been other threads about this issue and others have been told categorically that some of these cannot be offered due to the compliance department being unwilling to sign off on the cost disclosure. For example, for quite some time Fundsmith was not available at iWeb due to them believing its disclosure was not adequate. They don't offer Lindsell Train Global Equity because they don't consider it has any clean unit classes (so they can't comply with RDR), yet other platforms differ on this.

There are also instances where they have taken a commercial decision not to appraise certain funds due to insufficient interest/popularity, or similarity with funds they have approved (there are quite a number of examples of Acc but not Inc versions of funds/ETFs being available or vice versa, or the absence of currency hedged versions of the same ETF). For LSE listed ETFs, these have to be deliberately blocked for compliance reasons, because the default is for any main market listed share to be available to trade.

If there is something that you want to invest in but cannot, then I'd urge you to contact them to request it is added, as this will only happen if there is sufficient interest.

ChilliBob

I'd say I've asked about 6-8 times, coming to about 10 funds, 2 have been added. So yeah worth an ask