Move SIPP from Vanguard to II ? 15 March at 12:54PM in Pensions, annuities & retirement planning 11 replies 431 views

cluckvolt

With the upcoming closure of Vanguard's SIPP advisory service I need to do something with my SIPP pot. Well, I could do 'nothing' and it'll change to a Vanguard 'self-managed' SIPP - as it was before I started to use their advisory service.

Pot size is currently around £160k. With the closure of the VG advisory, I'm thinking of moving it to another provider to get a wider choice of funds. And looking at fees and platforms, Interactive Investor (II) is coming out tops - with a flat-fee platform charge of £155.88 (plus £5.99 per trade).

I do also have an ISA with VG, but may leave it there, as fees are higher for this on II.

Anything else I should be looking at?
Thanks!

snarffie

I was going to correct you by saying that ii charge £19.99 for the ISA and SIPP (I think you previously had to have an ISA/Trading acct to have a SIPP), but it looks like new users can opt to go SIPP only ('Pension Builder) for £12.99 per month. 

Either option - £20 for ISA/Trading/SIPP or £13 for SIPP only is decent.

artyboy

I moved my ISA and SIPP from Vanguard to II recently - good offers around fee reductions for 6 months, plus cashback. If you wanted to add more funds then you should be able to get even more cashback via TCB. 

And you can move funds in specie, which given current market volatility is probably a very good thing. Does require a bit of physical posted paperwork but wasn't exactly hard to manage.

fcjf

I have recently transferred my SIPP from HL to ii and was pleasantly surprised at how efficient the process was. The in specie transfers took just under 3 weeks from start to finish and the one fund which couldn't be transferred in specie was transferred in cash a couple of days after the in specie transfers. £12.99 per month, no fees for 6 months and £300 cashback. Would recommend. 

Albermarle

fcjf said:

I have recently transferred my SIPP from HL to ii and was pleasantly surprised at how efficient the process was. The in specie transfers took just under 3 weeks from start to finish and the one fund which couldn't be transferred in specie was transferred in cash a couple of days after the in specie transfers. £12.99 per month, no fees for 6 months and £300 cashback. Would recommend. 

Hopefully it works as well transferring into HL, as the very generous current cashbacks seem to be attracting a lot of interest ( up to £1500) 

artyboy

Albermarle said:

fcjf said:

I have recently transferred my SIPP from HL to ii and was pleasantly surprised at how efficient the process was. The in specie transfers took just under 3 weeks from start to finish and the one fund which couldn't be transferred in specie was transferred in cash a couple of days after the in specie transfers. £12.99 per month, no fees for 6 months and £300 cashback. Would recommend. 

Hopefully it works as well transferring into HL, as the very generous current cashbacks seem to be attracting a lot of interest ( up to £1500) 

I've done 3 partial pension transfers out of nutmeg recently - to II, Bestinvest, and HL.

HL have been the worst so far. In each case it should be a straightforward cash movement via Origo, but HL dithered and dithered, and when I chased them (after waiting 15 mins listening to Muzak), I was told that they 'have problems' with Nutmeg and Origo - they were going to try and do it manually until I told them to pull their bloody finger out. 

Lo and behold it looks like things are moving today. But annoying that it wasn't a week or two ago when the markets would have been better for an encashment... I wanted out of Nutmeg anyway, so there was always going to be out-of-the-market risk, but irritating nonetheless.

Anyway, just my 2c on relative transfer experiences.

Alexland

cluckvolt said:

Anything else I should be looking at?

Depends on what asset(s) you are investing in and if you are performing adhoc transactions. I have a large ETF holding in my Fidelity SIPP and it only costs a capped £90 pa plus £1.50/qty for the divi reinvestment. They also have a £1.50 regular investing rate if still making contributions to the account. They paid me around £500 transfer cashback a few years ago (and their charge was until recently only £45 pa) so I don't think they have 'broken even' on having me as a customer yet. However they could be expensive if you are holding traditional OEIC funds or doing adhoc trades on exchange traded assets.

artyboy

Alexland said:

cluckvolt said:

Anything else I should be looking at?

Depends on what asset(s) you are investing in and if you are performing adhoc transactions. I have a large ETF holding in my Fidelity SIPP and it only costs a capped £90 pa plus £1.50/qty for the divi reinvestment. They also have a £1.50 regular investing rate if still making contributions to the account. They paid me around £500 transfer cashback a few years ago (and their charge was until recently only £45 pa) so I don't think they have 'broken even' on having me as a customer yet. However they could be expensive if you are holding traditional OEIC funds or doing adhoc trades on exchange traded assets.

I've held out on Fidelity for now as they have no active incentives for transferring SIPPs, but that's a very decent fee for a large holding - TBH I'm still mostly in trad funds but given I'm moving entirely to passive trackers, there's no reason why I shouldn't use ETFs more - the immediacy of buy/sell prices is another minor bonus.

Alexland

artyboy said:

I've held out on Fidelity for now as they have no active incentives for transferring SIPPs, but that's a very decent fee for a large holding - TBH I'm still mostly in trad funds but given I'm moving entirely to passive trackers, there's no reason why I shouldn't use ETFs more - the immediacy of buy/sell prices is another minor bonus.

Fidelity deliver a good service and the £45 pa rate (until this year when it doubled) was too good to be sustainable they even assigned me a Wealth advisor and gave me a 121 investment coaching call the scope of which wasn't just limited to what I held at Fidelity with no pressure to transfer more to them. The free kids JISAs and SIPPs are great too.

I hold Vanguard Developed World VEVE in my Fidelity SIPP and haven't traded it for years (am practicing masterly inactivity - emulating the dead investor) other than £1.50 divi reinvestment. Overall it's costing me 0.12% for the ETF and around 0.02% for the platform (£96 pa inc divi reinvestment).

All my new contributions are salary sac'd into my workplace pension which a few years ago transferred to a new master trust offering a developed world tracker at 0.20% total which is more than my Fidelity account is costing but it's okay so have been letting the assets build up there too. I quite enjoy the challenge of trying to get my workplace pension to catch up with the SIPP's valuation. No LTA to worry about for now....

cluckvolt

I looked again at Fidelity, but I think the % rate service fee (for me) will exclude it:

How much does Fidelity's SIPP cost?

• If you have between £25,000 and £250,000 invested with us, you will pay our standard service fee of 0.35%.
• If you have more than £250,000 invested, you will benefit from our lower service fee of 0.20%.  We do not charge you a service fee on any investments above £1 million.
• If you have less than £25,000 invested, you will pay a flat-rate fee of £90 a year, that’s £7.5 a month. However, if you set up a regular savings plan, you will be eligible for our standard service fee of 0.35%.

  
  

Alexland

cluckvolt said:

I looked again at Fidelity, but I think the % rate service fee (for me) will exclude it:

It depends what assets you hold, if you hold an ETF rather than a traditional OEIC fund they cap the percentage fee but you need to be careful as adhocs trades are expensive.

https://www.fidelity.co.uk/services/charges-fees/fees-more-detail/

The portion of the fee you pay on exchange-traded investments (shares, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), etc.) within an ISA or SIPP is capped at £90 (£7.50 a month).

...

There is a charge made for each buy and sell transaction you place (including switches and dividend reinvestments). This will be deducted from the amount invested or raised through a sale.

• £1.50 for deals as part of a regular savings or withdrawal plan, or for a reinvestment of income or a dividend.
• Simple charge of £7.50 for each deal placed online
• Phone trades are charged £30.00 for each deal.