Considering moving SIPP from AJ Bell to Interactive Investor

Filo25

I have about £216k in a SIPP, all invested in funds (HSBC All-World + Royal London Short Term Money Market).

Currently on AJ Bell but considering moving over to ii, just as the flat fees would seem more reasonable based on fund investment.

I just wanted to check if all the ii users were happy enough with them and if there is anything else I need to take into account (I likely won't be changing investments too frequently, so hopefully trading fees not too onerous.

Equally if there are any other platforms that people would recommend, let me know!

LHW99

II is perfectly fine. I have found them reasonably responsive to secure messages, and when my OH requested a small UFPLS this year, the money came through within the stated 10 days, and the application was all online.

He has an S&S ISA there too, which is included with the monthly SIPP fee, for which (on that fee version) you get one free trade per month which is used for any rebalancing / moving dividends into the STMM to get a bit more interest than II gives on cash.

Filo25

I see ii have a £40 fee for trades over £100k, if you just split that to keep individual trades under £100k does that avoid that or do they apply more rules there to stop doing that

spg1

I have been with ii for several years (moved from AJ Bell as at the time the fees for my SIPP worked out a fair bit cheaper with ii) and now have both a SIPP and ISA with them with a mix of funds and individual shares.  I like the platform and for me all runs very smoothly. Seems good value at £21.99 a month although I haven't really looked into other platforms recently. I also don't trade very often.

I have taken a couple of tax-free lump sums out over the past couple of years which was painless, although haven't started drawdown yet so no insight into how easy that side of things is.

Albermarle

You  might be interested to know that some SIPP providers offer regular cash back deals for transferring to them.
Typically will be once a year, for say a 2 or 3 month period. Some are more straightforward than others ( and more generous).
The cashback on offer seems to have got bigger in the last couple of years, and II are one of the providers who have had these deals on offer. Maybe for £216K you might get £500?
Of course there is no guarantee that new cashback deals will come along.

Filo25

Yes I noticed there was an ii cashback offer closing today!

vacheron

Albermarle said:

You  might be interested to know that some SIPP providers offer regular cash back deals for transferring to them.
Typically will be once a year, for say a 2 or 3 month period. Some are more straightforward than others ( and more generous).
The cashback on offer seems to have got bigger in the last couple of years, and II are one of the providers who have had these deals on offer. Maybe for £216K you might get £500?
Of course there is no guarantee that new cashback deals will come along.

I'm also looking for something with low fees and ideally an incentive would be nice.
I moved £125K to HL last year and recieved £1,500 cahsback, but there don't seem to be quite such generous offers this year. 

LHW99

I see ii have a £40 fee for trades over £100k, if you just split that to keep individual trades under £100k does that avoid that or do they apply more rules there to stop doing that

I have no idea on that I'm afraid. I thought I was doing well back in the day when I was able to move from deal in the 00's to ones in the 000's. Dealing in hundreds of thousands is well above my pay (savings) grade!

DavidT67

vacheron said:

I'm also looking for something with low fees and ideally an incentive would be nice.
I moved £125K to HL last year and recieved £1,500 cahsback, but there don't seem to be quite such generous offers this year. 

I suspect HL SIPP & ISA transfer cashback offers will be back in the next few months. They have certainly been the most generous available.  

Recent offers from II and Fidelity didn't seem worth the risk and potential hassle for the reward.

Also found that a lot of the new platforms don't support transferring in SIPPs where you've accessed tax free cash or are in drawdown.

Filo25

LHW99 said:

I see ii have a £40 fee for trades over £100k, if you just split that to keep individual trades under £100k does that avoid that or do they apply more rules there to stop doing that

I have no idea on that I'm afraid. I thought I was doing well back in the day when I was able to move from deal in the 00's to ones in the 000's. Dealing in hundreds of thousands is well above my pay (savings) grade!

Not doing that well sadly, just a consolidation of a lot of small funds and as my funds are pretty simple and consolidated now the global tracker can get over that amount if I wanted to move it

poseidon1

Another thumbs up here for II.

Had been running Sipps, ISAs and GIAs with both HL and II. However have now merged both Sipps with II with useful fees savings.

They operate  1 free trade per month, which can be utilised by either Sipp, ISA or GIA.  I pay II £21.99 per month but that covers all three accounts with them and fee debited entirely from the GIA.

Finally although not relevant to your portfolio, II permits foreign currency investments which I am using to build up stakes in Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway ( and dollar denominated etfs, something that HL ( and A J Bell ) do not offer.

I will say that their app is not quite as slick as HL, but does the job reasonably adequately.