Better SIPP provider than fidelity ?

Clare43

Hi

My LG investment funds ( that are in an isa ) were moved  to fidelity by LG a while ago.  Fidelity seemed good / better choice of funds etc so I decided to open a SIPP with fidelity as well.  I also have a SIPP with standard life which is fairly good but not as much choice in funds,  

I've made two payments into my fidelity SIPP and found out the tax relief was supposed to take 6-8 weeks to be in my account.  It’s gone past this so I queried it with fidelity only to be told they don’t request the tax relief till end of the tax month, and the 6-8 weeks start then.  My standard life SIPP credits my tax relief as soon as I make the payment so don’t see why fidelity take so long. 

Are there any other SIPP providers that have a good fund choice like fidelity but give me the tax relief straight away like SL  ?    Just looking if any better options so as much money as possible is in the SIPP for as long as possible rather than waiting around 3 months like I am with fidelity.   Thanks for any suggestions 😊 

dunstonh

My LG investment funds ( that are in an isa ) were moved  to fidelity by LG a while ago.  Fidelity seemed good / better choice of funds etc so I decided to open a SIPP with fidelity as well.  I also have a SIPP with standard life which is fairly good but not as much choice in funds,  

Is yours the full Fidelity option or the cut down Fidelity option?  (Std Life also have a full version but also cut down versions and you indicate yours is a cut down version).

I've made two payments into my fidelity SIPP and found out the tax relief was supposed to take 6-8 weeks to be in my account.  It’s gone past this so I queried it with fidelity only to be told they don’t request the tax relief till end of the tax month, and the 6-8 weeks start then.  My standard life SIPP credits my tax relief as soon as I make the payment so don’t see why fidelity take so long. 

Standard Life prefund a number of transactions. Fidelity do not.   So, you have to wait until money is received by Fidelity.

Are there any other SIPP providers that have a good fund choice like fidelity but give me the tax relief straight away like SL  ? 

Sl on their full versions pre-fund and are whole of market.   However, most DIY providers do not pre-fund tax relief.  Only on the advice side do you tend to see that.

Clare43

dunstonh said:

My LG investment funds ( that are in an isa ) were moved  to fidelity by LG a while ago.  Fidelity seemed good / better choice of funds etc so I decided to open a SIPP with fidelity as well.  I also have a SIPP with standard life which is fairly good but not as much choice in funds,  

Is yours the full Fidelity option or the cut down Fidelity option?  (Std Life also have a full version but also cut down versions and you indicate yours is a cut down version).

I've made two payments into my fidelity SIPP and found out the tax relief was supposed to take 6-8 weeks to be in my account.  It’s gone past this so I queried it with fidelity only to be told they don’t request the tax relief till end of the tax month, and the 6-8 weeks start then.  My standard life SIPP credits my tax relief as soon as I make the payment so don’t see why fidelity take so long. 

Standard Life prefund a number of transactions. Fidelity do not.   So, you have to wait until money is received by Fidelity.

Are there any other SIPP providers that have a good fund choice like fidelity but give me the tax relief straight away like SL  ? 

Sl on their full versions pre-fund and are whole of market.   However, most DIY providers do not pre-fund tax relief.  Only on the advice side do you tend to see that.

Sorry dunstonh - not quite sure what you mean by cut down versions 🤔 - knowledge a bit limited. The fidelity one is a fidelity personal investing account SIPP - pensions savings account. 

The Standard Life one is an active money personal pension. 

Guess I’ve just got used to getting the tax relief straight away with SL so waiting for fidelity to sort seems not as good. So not really much choice to think about swapping to them by sound of it. Thanks for your comment 😊

Albermarle

Perhaps a simpler explanation is that the traditional pension providers, like Standard Life, Aviva, Prudential, Scottish Widows etc usually prefund the tax relief ( so put it in your pot before they actually receive it from HMRC).
On the other hand, if you are with an investment platform, like Fidelity ( and all their competitors , like HL, II, etc ), you have to wait for the tax relief to arrive from HMRC.

Probably seems a bit odd, but it is just the way the industry and market has developed. The traditional providers used to have much fatter margins and could afford to do it.

Clare43

Albermarle said:

Perhaps a simpler explanation is that the traditional pension providers, like Standard Life, Aviva, Prudential, Scottish Widows etc usually prefund the tax relief ( so put it in your pot before they actually receive it from HMRC).
On the other hand, if you are with an investment platform, like Fidelity ( and all their competitors , like HL, II, etc ), you have to wait for the tax relief to arrive from HMRC.

Probably seems a bit odd, but it is just the way the industry and market has developed. The traditional providers used to have much fatter margins and could afford to do it.

Thanks for the explanation 😊. I suppose others like Aviva, Scottish widows etc will have limited fund options like Standard Life 🤔

I guess having to wait for Fidelity to do things is the price you pay for better variety of investment options 

Asghar

Clare43 said:

I've made two payments into my fidelity SIPP and found out the tax relief was supposed to take 6-8 weeks to be in my account.  It’s gone past this so I queried it with fidelity only to be told they don’t request the tax relief till end of the tax month, and the 6-8 weeks start then.  My standard life SIPP credits my tax relief as soon as I make the payment so don’t see why fidelity take so long. 

It can take 6 and a half to eleven weeks for the tax relief to arrive. Depends on what date you made the payments.

What was the date?

The cut-off for claiming tax relief is the 5th of every month, same date as the end of the financial tax year. The tax relief is then paid by HMRC on the 21st of the following month.

So if you made a payment on the 5th May, before midnight. The tax relief would be received on the 21st June. That's the shortest time possible.

If you happened to make a payment on the 6th May, it will not be claimed by the platform till the 5th June and then received/paid by HMRC on 21st July. The longest wait.

Hargreaves Lanswdown always receive the tax relief on the 21st on the month, or the next working day and invest it the next working after that.

Clare43

Asghar said:

Clare43 said:

I've made two payments into my fidelity SIPP and found out the tax relief was supposed to take 6-8 weeks to be in my account.  It’s gone past this so I queried it with fidelity only to be told they don’t request the tax relief till end of the tax month, and the 6-8 weeks start then.  My standard life SIPP credits my tax relief as soon as I make the payment so don’t see why fidelity take so long. 

It can take 6 and a half to eleven weeks for the tax relief to arrive. Depends on what date you made the payments.

What was the date?

One was on 18/3/22 - I had expected to receive this by now. The other was on 6/4/22 - which I was expecting by 1/6/22 giving the max 8 weeks fidelity say 

Asghar

Clare43 said:

Asghar said:

Clare43 said:

I've made two payments into my fidelity SIPP and found out the tax relief was supposed to take 6-8 weeks to be in my account.  It’s gone past this so I queried it with fidelity only to be told they don’t request the tax relief till end of the tax month, and the 6-8 weeks start then.  My standard life SIPP credits my tax relief as soon as I make the payment so don’t see why fidelity take so long. 

It can take 6 and a half to eleven weeks for the tax relief to arrive. Depends on what date you made the payments.

What was the date?

One was on 18/3/22 - I had expected to receive this by now. The other was on 6/4/22 - which I was expecting by 1/6/22 giving the max 8 weeks fidelity say 

The 18th March one would have been claimed by Fidelity on 5th April, and they should receive it from HMRC on 23rd May. This is the next working day after the 21st.

The other one would have been claimed on 5th May and HMRC should send the tax relief to Fidelity on 21st June.

Albermarle

Clare43 said:

Albermarle said:

Perhaps a simpler explanation is that the traditional pension providers, like Standard Life, Aviva, Prudential, Scottish Widows etc usually prefund the tax relief ( so put it in your pot before they actually receive it from HMRC).
On the other hand, if you are with an investment platform, like Fidelity ( and all their competitors , like HL, II, etc ), you have to wait for the tax relief to arrive from HMRC.

Probably seems a bit odd, but it is just the way the industry and market has developed. The traditional providers used to have much fatter margins and could afford to do it.

Thanks for the explanation 😊. I suppose others like Aviva, Scottish widows etc will have limited fund options like Standard Life 🤔

I guess having to wait for Fidelity to do things is the price you pay for better variety of investment options 

Yes all the traditional big players will have limited range of investments . The main restriction is that they only offer funds ( OEIC's) . You can not buy individual company shares, Investment trusts, ETF's etc .
However for your average pension fund holder this is not a disadvantage, as >90% never move out of the default fund, or in many cases even know what a default fund is. 

To muddy the waters some of these big companies now offer SIPP's, but in my very limited experience they still do not offer the full  range compared to Fidelity ( or similar) and are a bit more expensive.

dunstonh

Sorry dunstonh - not quite sure what you mean by cut down versions 🤔 - knowledge a bit limited. The fidelity one is a fidelity personal investing account SIPP - pensions savings account. 

Fidelity have a SIPP and they have a cut down version with a limited fund range (about 40-50 funds) that is not a SIPP.
Standard Life have three SIPPs, stakeholder pensions and personal pensions.

Thanks for the explanation 😊. I suppose others like Aviva, Scottish widows etc will have limited fund options like Standard Life 🤔

Scottish Widows is the closest to the old fashioned products but the Aviva platform and both if the Standard Life platforms (Wrap and Elevate) are whole of market for investment shcoice.

The traditional big players mostly no longer have a limited range of investments.

(noting that Standard Life are brand changing to Abrdn apart from on old fashioned plans that were sold to Phoenix along with the Standard Life brand)

The issue with prefunding is more to do with distribution than provider.   The DIY market needed to cut costs to undercut the advice market.  Prefunding is one area they did away with to reduce costs.  That said, some DIY platforms do prefund certain transactions (such as fund switches).  And on the advice market, some platforms have done away with prefunding  as well.

Albermarle

Scottish Widows is the closest to the old fashioned products but the Aviva platform and both if the Standard Life platforms (Wrap and Elevate) are whole of market for investment shcoice.The traditional big players mostly no longer have a limited range of investments.(noting that Standard Life are brand changing to Abrdn apart from on old fashioned plans that were sold to Phoenix along with the Standard Life brand)

For the OP's benefit, the Standard Life situation can be quite confusing, due to change of ownership of part of the business, and different companies using the same name etc .

The Wrap and Elevate platforms mentioned above are for financial advisors only, and are ( eventually ) now stopping calling themselves Standard Life .

The surviving Standard Life name now refers only to the pensions offered to the retail sector ( means people without advisors) and that is where your ' Active Money Personal Pension ' is. It is not actually a SIPP but a personal pension ( technical differences ) SIPPs are available from SL and in reality there is a very blurred line between the AMPP and the simplest SIPP they offer anyway.

Dunstonh refers to these as 'old fashioned plans' which they maybe. However in fact the SL website is pretty good, the customer service is good, and their new(ish) owners seem to be wanting to expand the business . As said before only funds/OEICS are available but there is about 300 to choose from. 

Their standard charging tariff is not the lowest, but mine  carries an extra discount negotiated originally by an ex employer and then later by me. In other words if you have a reasonably large sum with them, they seem open to discuss the charges ( helps if you mention about transferring Vanguard or Interactive Investor etc in the conversation