moving Halifax managed funds s&s isa to another platform

stellios84

considering moving my Halifax managed fund (4 and 6) isa to another platform as peformance and fees have not been great but concerned how long the process can take? how long would my money be out the market for? would I be better to stay put? I would be investing in new products 🤔 

eskbanker

If you're moving from Halifax proprietary products to those available elsewhere then you obviously need to be out of the market at some point - S&S ISA transfers should complete within 30 days but many, especially in-specie ones, have taken longer in recent times (variable depending on who you're going from and to), but if you sell at Halifax, transfer as cash and then buy at your new provider then that is likely to be fastest. 

Albermarle

There should be many alternative funds available on the Halifax platform for you to look at ?

Alexland

Albermarle said:

There should be many alternative funds available on the Halifax platform for you to look at ?

I suspect the OP has the limited choice "Investment ISA" rather than the Halifax Share Dealing ISA account.

https://www.halifax.co.uk/investing/start-investing/ready-made-investments.html

It's unlikely these funds could be transferred anywhere in-specie so there would be some time out of the market which would depend on the new and old providers but yes around a month would seem reasonable unless something goes wrong (transfer paperwork lost, human errors, unable to issue or accept cheques or electronic payments, etc) or one of the providers has a backlog of transfers to complete, extra slow processes or just can't be bothered because of covid, the competent team member leaving or poor management destroying morale.

stellios84

Alexland said:

Albermarle said:

There should be many alternative funds available on the Halifax platform for you to look at ?

I suspect the OP has the limited choice "Investment ISA" rather than the Halifax Share Dealing ISA account.

https://www.halifax.co.uk/investing/start-investing/ready-made-investments.html

It's unlikely these funds could be transferred anywhere in-specie so there would be some time out of the market which would depend on the new and old providers but yes around a month would seem reasonable unless something goes wrong (transfer paperwork lost, human errors, unable to issue or accept cheques or electronic payments, etc) or one of the providers has a backlog of transfers to complete, extra slow processes or just can't be bothered because of covid, the competent team member leaving or poor management destroying morale.

Must admit I wasn't aware until I called Halifax today that it is indeed a limited product. I think this was my first venture into investing when I came into some inheritance and I was a bit panicked. It's tempting to just leave it  as it's not even at the year mark yet. However I get a bit twitched by lack of positive reviews of these funds.

Alexland

At least with such ready made multi asset funds you haven't made any fundamental mistakes but to the forum regulars we would probably say they are uninspiring but then many of us have come to the conclusion that we would rather take more control and a higher level of risk with our money accepting more volatility for likely higher long term return.

Robert_McGeddon

stellios84 said:

Must admit I wasn't aware until I called Halifax today that it is indeed a limited product. I think this was my first venture into investing when I came into some inheritance and I was a bit panicked. It's tempting to just leave it  as it's not even at the year mark yet. However I get a bit twitched by lack of positive reviews of these funds.

I empathise with you OP.

I was rushed into simply transferring my wife's Halifax S&S ISA into my name when she died a few years back. There were many more urgent and important things to attend to at the time.

I recently received an annual statement from Halifax.  The ISA has increased in value from £34K to £42K over the last 12 months. My initial reaction was "Wow! Much better than I expected." However, closer scrutiny revealed that all five funds had underperformed their benchmarks over the preceding 3 years - some by a very substantial margin. They also had management charged of between 0.5% and 1.0%, which is higher than I incur elsewhere.

I have resolved to move the ISA. Being "out of the market" for a few days (even if the end-to-end process takes a month) seems to me to be small beer compared to higher returns and lower charges both compounded over several years going forward.

Audaxer

Alexland said:

Albermarle said:

There should be many alternative funds available on the Halifax platform for you to look at ?

I suspect the OP has the limited choice "Investment ISA" rather than the Halifax Share Dealing ISA account.

https://www.halifax.co.uk/investing/start-investing/ready-made-investments.html

It's unlikely these funds could be transferred anywhere in-specie so there would be some time out of the market which would depend on the new and old providers but yes around a month would seem reasonable unless something goes wrong (transfer paperwork lost, human errors, unable to issue or accept cheques or electronic payments, etc) or one of the providers has a backlog of transfers to complete, extra slow processes or just can't be bothered because of covid, the competent team member leaving or poor management destroying morale.

So that the OP is not out of the market for long, I would have thought he would be able to get a quick transfer of the proceeds of the fund in the limited choice ISA when sold, to an S&S ISA on Halifax Share Dealing platform, where he has a much greater choice of funds? I don't know if it can be done that way, but as it's just effectively transferring cash within the same company, surely it could be done much quicker than the month it would take if he transferred to a different platform?

Alexland

I don't believe HSD (a limited company in itself, owned somehow into Lloyds) is in any way involved in the operation of the Investment ISA product so such a transfer may not be any quicker than transferring somewhere else.

masonic

Alexland said:

I don't believe HSD (a limited company in itself, owned somehow into Lloyds) is in any way involved in the operation of the Investment ISA product so such a transfer may not be any quicker than transferring somewhere else.

If you scroll down to the bottom of the link you posted above, you'll see in the "FSCS Protected" and "Important information" sections, the company named is Halifax Share Dealing Limited.

Alexland

masonic said:

If you scroll down to the bottom of the link you posted above, you'll see in the "FSCS Protected" and "Important information" sections, the company named is Halifax Share Dealing Limited.

Aah yes it seems they are involved in the Investment ISA product. I had expected it to be a white label of the fund manager's account wrapper.