Leaving HSBC's ISA platform

gascar

After many years, with a house value amount of cash in their ISA wrapped Global Investment Centre in various funds,. I'm off.

We have funds and bits of pensions in many comparable places and I don't keep a running record separately of what I've moved between funds on a platform, in say a diary. I expect to find out what's going on, from the webste. I'm paying.

The HSBC web site is terrible. I can't tell you how much is in there, because I don't know. It doesn't say, and today after 40 minutes I've given up trying tou get the details sorted.

It shows a number of funds,and a number of values, but they will be wrong for all the time the stransaction is taking place, without any notice dispalyed, and for days afterwards.

If you transfer some money from fund A to fund B, the platform shows you still owning it in fund A long after you don't, with the value shown, reflecting what it would have been if you hadn't sold it. Even if you sold it all.

There's no hint that you sold (any of) the fund. If you dig out the sale or transfer, it'll be "executed".

If you already had funds in B,. again there will be no hint there's more on the way. A transfer is always shown as executed when it isn't, for a day or three. "Order status", is pretty useless. If the balance reflects the transfer, you still may not be able tou sell or switch it, for some variable period.

If you want to check what order you made, you have to leave the GIC part of the website and go up up and sideways to My Documents and download a file. They name all the files the same, so you get the wrong one, and its clones,  etc. So you find the date and know where it "ought" to be. You work your way through any vaguely recent transaction, and try to work out from the value where it actually is.

Live chat is a farce, they never know what you're taling about, so you repeat yourself while they transfer you to someone who might actually have a clue.

You can't write to them other than by using the postal system. The one with envelopes and stamps. . There's no "contact us" form. SO you have to make protracted phone calls during your working day.

They have a fund comparison tool. It's broken, it leaves the previous month out. I made the mistake of telling them on the phone.The persobn I was tallking to, ignorant of  what it was, as above, had to refer to someone else. I was then told yes, they knew. But they haven't put a note on the web site or told their phone-answering staff.2-3 months alater it's still broken.

I have made an "official" complaint, aboutthe nonsense numbers they display on the website. After a while I got the "official" answer, that my observations had been passed on.  One person on the phone willl admit it's bad and they get loads of complaints, the next wil deny it.

So I waste half an hour every couple of weeks. That's 3 days a year.The fees are OK at  0.3%, the fund choice is middling, so I stayed, but enough is, just that.

HSBC you are incompetent, and your web platform is junk. Goodbye.

dunstonh

It shows a number of funds,and a number of values, but they will be wrong for all the time the stransaction is taking place, without any notice dispalyed, and for days afterwards.

Trades are not immediate with any platform. And settlement can be up to 3 working days.

<div>If you transfer some money from fund A to fund B, the platform shows you still owning it in fund A long after you don't, with the value shown, reflecting what it would have been if you hadn't sold it. Even if you sold it all.<br></div><div>There's no hint that you sold (any of) the fund. If you dig out the sale or transfer, it'll be "executed".</div>

How long is long?  You could expect just short of a week because of trade times and settlement periods.

If you already had funds in B,. again there will be no hint there's more on the way. A transfer is always shown as executed when it isn't, for a day or three. "Order status", is pretty useless. If the balance reflects the transfer, you still may not be able tou sell or switch it, for some variable period.

Again is this trading times and settlement periods?

Albermarle

The website does not sound great, but when buying and selling OEIC funds it always takes a lot longer to finalise everything, than when dealing in real time with shares etc.
One of my pension funds quotes four working days, although usually it only takes three. Plus like with the HSBC there is no indication of the pending order.
As they are long term investments, a couple of days is neither here nor there.

gascar

"is this trading times and settlement periods?"

It's more about their Statement which is constantly incorrect. Nobody wants a platform which shows you irrelevant, meaningless numbers.

Example - I sold a fund on a Monday. All week it showed up as though I owned it still, with the value changing every day. The following Monday it was still there. That's just incompetent. Why not grey it out, or something?

So if you adjusted one fund a week, the amount shown as a total would never be right, nor would the list of holdings

On HL it's obvious where there's an order pending, and it's much quicker.

SL say there's something pending so call us, which at least isn't misleading.
Another institution says switches between funds are done at tomorrow end of day, and it always is. Too few funds, though.

HSBC invariably take 4-5 days to "settle", which is the slowest of any. This is bowler-hat era performance!

So is Not being able to send them a message or ask them a question online - you have to send them a snail-mail letter unless you have time during the day  to go through their layers of variably competent phone call handlers.

"when buying and selling OEIC funds it always takes a lot longer to finalise everything," Sorry I don't buy that it has to. To the point, I don't see  why HSBC has to take double plus extra Bowler-Hat brigade time. I don't believe they still have runners with bags of 'papers' and have to add it all up with pencil and paper.

I would't necessarily agree the "long term" is in the nature of buying and selling these things either. Except that it's plain slow to do so it has to be long term! Right now it's worth rotating between sectors. I keep a percentage as cash so I can buy quickly. Even that sometimes takes 2 days - 9a.m Monday to some time Wednesday.

Some wealthy folk I can quote have no positions they just forget about "because those are investments". Mid July I sold my tech stock just after the double top, rebuying when the trend reversed. Thus avoiding 10% drop a classic investor would have taken. Just MA's etc.

I don't mind the fees if they're quick and efficient - those are small beer.
But I've found you don't find out the detail of the platform until you're using it, and they can cost you.

HSBC is, I assume, pretty safe for my lump,  £x m, (not all ISAs obvs).  OTOH the likes of trading 212 where the 20k isa is multiplied to way over FSCS 85k since I opened it, I'm not so sure about.

Any recommendations??

IE? Bell? Fidelity?

I probably need an IFA but I'd want to check the hatstand.

wmb194

gascar said:

HSBC invariably take 4-5 days to "settle", which is the slowest of any. This is bowler-hat era performance!

It varies by fund manager. If you look in the fund's prospectus, might be an omnibus prospectus that covers multiple funds, it should state the settlement time e.g., Invesco below. If you miss a broker's daily order cut-off time, usually 10am to 11am for 12pm valuation point funds, you'll add another day.

gascar

wmb194 said:

gascar said:

HSBC invariably take 4-5 days to "settle", which is the slowest of any. This is bowler-hat era performance!

It varies by fund manager. If you look in the fund's prospectus, might be an omnibus prospectus that covers multiple funds, it should state the settlement time e.g., Invesco below. If you miss a broker's daily order cut-off time, usually 10am to 11am for 12pm valuation point funds, you'll add another day.

I have compared them with others - they take an extra couple of days. (And leave the fund listed in your statement as though you still own it, the price changing daily)

The nonsense referred to above was repeated recently.. I had to download a number of un-named pdfs from the documents section which is a few clicks up and sideways from the statement, and open the documents to read them to see if there were any pending orders. The site is slow so that's about 10 minutes, to see what others manage to display on one page.

On HL you click the flag which declares thatthere are Pending Orders, and you get the list.

HSBC's attitude is  along the lines that if they'd been in envelopes, yes I'd have had to  open them all. I asked the lady for my current total. After several minutes of getting confused, she was happy when I said don't bother.

eskbanker

How's the transfer to a better platform going?

gascar

eskbanker said:

How's the transfer to a better platform going?

Barely. 

One of the snags is the FSCS limit, and the unknown (to me) reliability of institutions. A number of sharedealing brokers have appeard fairly recently ( few years) because of the attraction of the state of the markets. If everything takes a dive, will they go under? One has already stopped taking new investors (capital).

I would need too many institutions if I limited each to the FSCS limit. One of the features of HSBC is that if they go under, it won't just be me in trouble.

Most banks are even more limited in their services or range of funds. Always look for MAN GLG Dynamic. Check the curve and you'll see why. I mean, 27% in a smooth curve, it'll do for a while. (It's flatter now.)

I'mrecently using ii. I'm, also using a broker Trading 212 I really don't trust, for small Isa and share  account dealings. I'm familiar with how the platform can be best used, and there's inertia. . They are uk regulated supposedly, though some of their antics might suggest otherwise.  When the total gets far into 6 figs I slice off the excess to somewhere else. They do have a  leveraged account and leveraged etfs in the ISA account, so that happens quite often.