Royal London transfers out - be aware of timescales!

BoxerfanUK

Hi all,

My OH has a former workplace pension with Royal London.  She wants to consolidate her pensions into one SIPP and start drawdown at the end of April, so in the middle of Feb she opened one with Interactive Investor and submitted a transfer form to ii to move her RL pension into it. 

She heard nothing so far from RL, so today called RL to ask why it appears to be taking so long.  The extremely nonchalant response from the advisor was, "oh yeah yeah we had a meeting last week and now allowing around 41 WORKING days to effect transfers out".  My OH asked her why did RL not inform us of this when the transfer request was submitted and the answer was.... "well i'm telling you now".  When my OH stated that she wished to raise a complaint about this, including about the advisors attitude, all of a sudden the advisor said she's passed it to someone else to effect more quickly and they will be in touch by e-mail.

Maybe we are naive, but 41 days!  Is that usual?

dunstonh

Maybe we are naive, but 41 days!  Is that usual?

Royal London are normally very quick.  I did one last month and it was about 5 days (using Origo).  Ex CIS plans are notoriously slow as they still run the old CIS office, staff and software but the Alderley side is normally very good.

However, most providers will send resources to end of tax year work as a priority over transfers at this time of the year.

BoxerfanUK

dunstonh said:

Maybe we are naive, but 41 days!  Is that usual?

Royal London are normally very quick.  I did one last month and it was about 5 days (using Origo).  Ex CIS plans are notoriously slow as they still run the old CIS office, staff and software but the Alderley side is normally very good.

However, most providers will send resources to end of tax year work as a priority over transfers at this time of the year.

Thanks dunstonh.  RL confirmed that they received a request for 'in-specie' transfer on 28/2 but told ii they could not do in-specie so we had to re-submit as a cash transfer (330K), which was done on 05/3.
To be honest its more about the terrible customer service attitude and leaving clients in the dark by not informing of the timescales!
PS what is 'CIS'?

Marcon

BoxerfanUK said:

dunstonh said:

Maybe we are naive, but 41 days!  Is that usual?

Royal London are normally very quick.  I did one last month and it was about 5 days (using Origo).  Ex CIS plans are notoriously slow as they still run the old CIS office, staff and software but the Alderley side is normally very good.

However, most providers will send resources to end of tax year work as a priority over transfers at this time of the year.

Thanks dunstonh.  RL confirmed that they received a request for 'in-specie' transfer on 28/2 but told ii they could not do in-specie so we had to re-submit as a cash transfer (330K), which was done on 05/3.
To be honest its more about the terrible customer service attitude and leaving clients in the dark by not informing of the timescales!
PS what is 'CIS'?

Co-operative Insurance Society.

BoxerfanUK

Marcon said:

BoxerfanUK said:

dunstonh said:

Maybe we are naive, but 41 days!  Is that usual?

Royal London are normally very quick.  I did one last month and it was about 5 days (using Origo).  Ex CIS plans are notoriously slow as they still run the old CIS office, staff and software but the Alderley side is normally very good.

However, most providers will send resources to end of tax year work as a priority over transfers at this time of the year.

Thanks dunstonh.  RL confirmed that they received a request for 'in-specie' transfer on 28/2 but told ii they could not do in-specie so we had to re-submit as a cash transfer (330K), which was done on 05/3.
To be honest its more about the terrible customer service attitude and leaving clients in the dark by not informing of the timescales!
PS what is 'CIS'?

Co-operative Insurance Society.

Thanks Marcon, no it’s not CIS

gcampb

Hi - I worked for another provider and this was my job role  

Firstly - they probably said they could not facilitate the inspecie transfer because your new provider may not be able to hold the assets which you currently hold or they are currently suspended. It’s worth clarifying this with your provider as new(ish) regulations mean that providers are obliged to convert your assets prior to transfer to a ‘common’ share class to facilitate inspecie transfers. The reasoning behind this is to make sure your not paying unnecessary fees - as some providers may charge you when you want to sell and some may charge you when you want to invest, it’s particularly specific to transfers as you may not want to be out of the market (ie holding cash) for months and months while a transfer is ongoing. And you don’t want to pay fees to sell/buy when it’s not necessary. 

Secondly - unfortunately 41 days is not uncommon. I’ve seen transfers take a year to complete. The current FCA guidance means firms should be aiming to complete transfers within 3 months. However this is not a hard rule - if there is a genuine delay - perhaps due to suspended funds, or very slow fund manager, missing information from ceding schemes etc.

It’s worth your while taking notes of the timescales and finding out exactly what has been going on, if necessary calling both the ceding scheme and the new receiving scheme to work out who is causing the delay. If you’re dissatisfied - raise a complaint and ask for a timeline. You should be paid interest for the days you have been delayed and if your new provider already has instruction on how to invest your funds, then the potential loss while ‘out of market’ should be compensated by whoever caused the delay. 

It’s a frustrating process - but stay on top of both schemes and you’ll get there in the end and DEFINITELY do not agree to close the complaint until the transfer has finalised, 

best of luck 

BoxerfanUK

gcampb said:

Hi - I worked for another provider and this was my job role  

Firstly - they probably said they could not facilitate the inspecie transfer because your new provider may not be able to hold the assets which you currently hold or they are currently suspended. It’s worth clarifying this with your provider as new(ish) regulations mean that providers are obliged to convert your assets prior to transfer to a ‘common’ share class to facilitate inspecie transfers. The reasoning behind this is to make sure your not paying unnecessary fees - as some providers may charge you when you want to sell and some may charge you when you want to invest, it’s particularly specific to transfers as you may not want to be out of the market (ie holding cash) for months and months while a transfer is ongoing. And you don’t want to pay fees to sell/buy when it’s not necessary. 

Secondly - unfortunately 41 days is not uncommon. I’ve seen transfers take a year to complete. The current FCA guidance means firms should be aiming to complete transfers within 3 months. However this is not a hard rule - if there is a genuine delay - perhaps due to suspended funds, or very slow fund manager, missing information from ceding schemes etc.

It’s worth your while taking notes of the timescales and finding out exactly what has been going on, if necessary calling both the ceding scheme and the new receiving scheme to work out who is causing the delay. If you’re dissatisfied - raise a complaint and ask for a timeline. You should be paid interest for the days you have been delayed and if your new provider already has instruction on how to invest your funds, then the potential loss while ‘out of market’ should be compensated by whoever caused the delay. 

It’s a frustrating process - but stay on top of both schemes and you’ll get there in the end and DEFINITELY do not agree to close the complaint until the transfer has finalised, 

best of luck 

Thank you so much for that comprehensive reply.  We are waiting for a response from RL on the way forward and we have definitely taken note of your comments.  Thanks again.

dunstonh

Thanks dunstonh.  RL confirmed that they received a request for 'in-specie' transfer on 28/2 but told ii they could not do in-specie so we had to re-submit as a cash transfer (330K), which was done on 05/3.

That is bit embarrassing by II.   They should know you cannot in-specie transfer insured funds.

To be honest its more about the terrible customer service attitude and leaving clients in the dark by not informing of the timescales!

With a transfer, the receiving scheme controls the process effectively and it is they who should be advising you of timescales.    From what you describe, the response from the call centre worker at RL was unprofessional but that is very unusual for RL.    However, if is II that should be doing the chasing and updating you with timescales.

inspecie transfers can take many weeks, months or even a year.  Whereas cash transfers using ORIGO typically take about 3-7 days nowadays.    

There is also the issue of the (relatively) new rules if a transfer is going from a mainstream investment option to something that allows overseas investments.  II would trigger an amber flag.      Whilst this is not an issue for mainstream providers transferring between each other, it is an issue with small players (and II would be classed as a small player).   So, it then needs a due diligence flowchart applied to it and a risk based decision made.   That will add to the timescale.

BoxerfanUK

dunstonh said:

Thanks dunstonh.  RL confirmed that they received a request for 'in-specie' transfer on 28/2 but told ii they could not do in-specie so we had to re-submit as a cash transfer (330K), which was done on 05/3.

That is bit embarrassing by II.   They should know you cannot in-specie transfer insured funds.

To be honest its more about the terrible customer service attitude and leaving clients in the dark by not informing of the timescales!

With a transfer, the receiving scheme controls the process effectively and it is they who should be advising you of timescales.    From what you describe, the response from the call centre worker at RL was unprofessional but that is very unusual for RL.    However, if is II that should be doing the chasing and updating you with timescales.

inspecie transfers can take many weeks, months or even a year.  Whereas cash transfers using ORIGO typically take about 3-7 days nowadays.    

There is also the issue of the (relatively) new rules if a transfer is going from a mainstream investment option to something that allows overseas investments.  II would trigger an amber flag.      Whilst this is not an issue for mainstream providers transferring between each other, it is an issue with small players (and II would be classed as a small player).   So, it then needs a due diligence flowchart applied to it and a risk based decision made.   That will add to the timescale.

Thank you.  There was us thinking it would be a simple process!!

MisterT

I'm also in the middle of transferring from RL to II - a simple cash transfer and I was also told "they are currently looking at a 40/41 day timeframe to look at the request" Pretty poor show I think.

And this is supposed to be done using the Origo system, according to the latest stats RL are taking no more than 14 days!

Albermarle

BoxerfanUK said:

dunstonh said:

Maybe we are naive, but 41 days!  Is that usual?

Royal London are normally very quick.  I did one last month and it was about 5 days (using Origo).  Ex CIS plans are notoriously slow as they still run the old CIS office, staff and software but the Alderley side is normally very good.

However, most providers will send resources to end of tax year work as a priority over transfers at this time of the year.

Thanks dunstonh.  RL confirmed that they received a request for 'in-specie' transfer on 28/2 but told ii they could not do in-specie so we had to re-submit as a cash transfer (330K), which was done on 05/3.
To be honest its more about the terrible customer service attitude and leaving clients in the dark by not informing of the timescales!
PS what is 'CIS'?

You can not transfer out in Specie from a traditional insurer like Royal London ( or Scottish Widows, Standard Life etc) because their funds are in house insured funds. So it always has to be a cash transfer, so requesting in specie probably delayed things.

RL like many companies are a mix of older legacy companies from mergers, takeovers etc . So behind the scenes there will be different historical systems operating, sometimes from different offices.