Transferring ISA to Santander - time taken?

Pelagonium4

I applied to transfer an ISA to Santander 20 days ago. Got an acknowledgment letter almost immediately but since nothing.  Is this wait time normal?  (tried Customer Services who said appropriate department would text me - they didn’t).  

eskbanker

Assuming you're transferring a cash ISA, they're required to complete these within 15 working days, so you're just about there.  If you haven't heard anything by the end of the week then you could log a complaint, which might prompt them to act if they're the ones holding it up (it could be the existing provider).

Albermarle

You need the receiving and the ceding ISA provider to both work efficiently and delays are not unheard of. Also it is clear from many posts on here, that many providers are currently struggling with workload on ISA transfers.

inspectorperez

If by any chance your transfer is from Virgin, you may just want to read the following thread:-

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6401740/virgin-money-cash-isa-transfer#latest

refluxer

When I transferred a Cash ISA from the Principality to Santander back in September, it took a total of 13 days from opening the Santander account to the transferred funds appearing in it.

As the Principality aren't members of the BACS ISA transfer service, this meant I had to post a paper transfer form to Santander and the Principality transferred the funds to Santander by cheque. Interest was back-dated by Santander, though.

Judging by the amount of people who have been waiting a month for their Santander eSaver account to be opened, I suspect they are very busy right now !

Pelagonium4

Thanks for the answers guys.  No it isn’t Virgin and if they had contacted my bank I’d have received a text alert.  I guess they are busy but if you offer a higher paying product you’d think they’d be prepared for the rush.  Always found them fairly hopeless in branch in the past but thought I’d give them the benefit of the doubt.  I’d stop the whole process if I didn’t suspect it would cause even more confusion. 

Stargunner

I applied to transfer a S&S ISA from iWeb last month. I have called Santander a few times and they just use the excuse that they have had a very high demand for their products. The money is only sitting as cash so there should be no delay in waiting for investments to be sold. I spoke to iWeb on Monday and they still hadn’t had the transfer request from Santander. I spoke to Santander on Tuesday and as the 30 working days were up yesterday they said that they will reimburse me for the loss of interest until the transfer is completed.