Santander Investment Hub issue

Technosaurus

Hi everyone, I'm having some serious issues with the Santander Investment Hub and was wondering if anyone has had similar?

I have a small S&S ISA and decided to add £1,000 to it from other savings. First ISA deposit of the tax year so no issues, coming from a Santander bank account, thought this would be very simple.

I logged into the Investment Hub on 5th July, instructed them to transfer the £1,000 from my Santander bank account... got told it would take 10 working days (in itself ridiculous), but then it finally appeared in there on Thursday last week. However now it's just sat there as 'GBP Cash' and won't let me transfer it to any of the managed funds?! And the 'Online Support' is a doom-loop of FAQ documents which don't cover what I need... there's no number to call, for once I'd actually love an automated chat bot to assist but no such luck and I can't get down the nearest branch in person for a while.

I gave it over the weekend in case there was some issue about when it is officially 'cleared' in the account but still the same today - I'm absolutely stumped as to how to get it from 'GBP Cash' into one of my two managed portfolio funds... any ideas?

(As an aside, I did search "Santander Investment Hub" before posting this and wish I had read the threads from a few years ago saying how terrible it was, I can't believe it's taken me nearly 3 weeks to transfer a grand from a current account to an ISA and it still isn't invested how it's supposed to be, I'll be moving it to a better platform in the next tax year)

jimjames

Technosaurus said:

(As an aside, I did search "Santander Investment Hub" before posting this and wish I had read the threads from a few years ago saying how terrible it was, I can't believe it's taken me nearly 3 weeks to transfer a grand from a current account to an ISA and it still isn't invested how it's supposed to be, I'll be moving it to a better platform in the next tax year)

I can't answer your question as not a user of Santander but I'd expect you have to issue a buy request once the funds are in your ISA. Why are you waiting until next tax year to leave? You can transfer now and get away from the problems asap

Technosaurus

Thanks JimJames - I have actually already opened another S&S ISA with a separate provider this tax year, it was one in the MSE email with a cashback deal if you put a certain (very low level, think it was £100) amount in, which I did and just have to leave it 12 months to get the cashback.

Whereas the Santander one I opened about 5 years ago purely because it is easy to see performance as I have my current account with them and login to online banking most days. In hindsight I should have simply put my £1000 into the other provider's account but ho hum.

Given that I've already opened a S&S ISA with another provider this tax year, I thought I couldn't open another S&S ISA until 6/4/26 - is that not the case? 

wmb194

Technosaurus said:

Thanks JimJames - I have actually already opened another S&S ISA with a separate provider this tax year, it was one in the MSE email with a cashback deal if you put a certain (very low level, think it was £100) amount in, which I did and just have to leave it 12 months to get the cashback.

Whereas the Santander one I opened about 5 years ago purely because it is easy to see performance as I have my current account with them and login to online banking most days. In hindsight I should have simply put my £1000 into the other provider's account but ho hum.

Given that I've already opened a S&S ISA with another provider this tax year, I thought I couldn't open another S&S ISA until 6/4/26 - is that not the case? 

No longer. So long as you stick to the overall £20k annual contribution limit you can open and contribute to as many as you want.

flaneurs_lobster

I'm new to this S&S ISA malarky but I've been using the Santander Investment Hub (in the app) for a few months now.

I can't compare it to other platforms but it does seem to be far from intuitive. I get cash deposited into the S&S ISA each month which, as you say, simply sits as 'GBP Cash'. If you then ask to buy new funds or top-up existing funds it will ask how you want to pay - debit card, DD or your GBP Cash balance. 

I've described this as a single event sequence, in reality it takes a week to 10 days to complete.

Technosaurus

Thanks @wmb194 that's really helpful - I'm very tempted to sack the whole thing off and start again elsewhere!

However I shall persevere in the short term based on what @flaneurs_lobster has said... There is a button to 'Invest' the 'GBP Cash' bit but when I press it I get taken to the screen to add more funds as if I was transferring more from my bank account. I did decide to do a dummy run to check all options, but at no point was I able to transfer the GBP Cash into either of the two portfolios I already have. Am I to guess at some magic point  in the next 7-10 days that it will be available to 'Invest' in the other portfolios?

What a palaver!

jimjames

Technosaurus said:

Given that I've already opened a S&S ISA with another provider this tax year, I thought I couldn't open another S&S ISA until 6/4/26 - is that not the case? 

You've always been able to open an ISA to transfer into at any point during the tax year. You can now open it and pay money up to the total of £20k this year as well

flaneurs_lobster

Technosaurus said:

However I shall persevere in the short term based on what @flaneurs_lobster has said... There is a button to 'Invest' the 'GBP Cash' bit but when I press it I get taken to the screen to add more funds as if I was transferring more from my bank account. I did decide to do a dummy run to check all options, but at no point was I able to transfer the GBP Cash into either of the two portfolios 

Like I said, totally intuitive. Don't try to add your 'GBP Cash' to one of your portfolios, instead select the portfolio you want to add to and take 'Buy'. Eventually you will be asked where the cash is coming from (not the Source of Funds question, bit further on), one of the options will be your cash stash.

Technosaurus

Thanks @flaneurs_lobster - I tried that just now but to no avail.

I added £1,000 on the nose, somehow my 'GBP Cash' is showing as £1007.46, and upon further inspection it appears the £7.46 is from some sort of dividend paid out a couple of months ago.

Yet when I did as you instructed, when I tried to add it from 'Specified Sub Account' it said I only had £7.46 available. So my suspicion is that for some reason the additional £1,000 is still not fully "cleared" or available to invest, but I have no idea why not.

I'm determined to beat this... based on what you said about this taking longer than you think I'll give it a few more days and update back here accordingly in case anyone else has similar problems. And then now I know it's an option I'll move the bloody lot because in this day and age I struggle to see how it can take 3 weeks to move a relatively small sum of cash from one account to another within the same bank!

flaneurs_lobster

Sounds like you are still trying to add cash to a portfolio, Find the ddlb under Stocks and Shares ISA and take the option 'Top up existing funds'.

Have you got a Cash Only Account showing in the Investment Hub (also called Investment Hub Cash in the app main account listing? I have and I've no idea what it's for or where the £2.24 in it came from. Sometimes it seems to get itself added to the cash that's sitting in the ISA account, for extra added confusion. Your grand should be showing in the main ISA account.

I'm glad the Government are keen to promote the use of S&S ISAs, perhaps a member of their team should have a go at this app in order to appreciate why the uptake is not quite as rapid as they'd like.

Think I prefer t'olden days when a chap would simply pick up the phone and have a word with his broker.

GeoffTF

flaneurs_lobster said:

Think I prefer t'olden days when a chap would simply pick up the phone and have a word with his broker.

You still can, but you pay old fashioned prices.