Paper share certificates

PoGee

I still get paper certificates from Aberdeen shares but I'd rather hold them electronically as royal mail is useless.

Do I need to find every single certificate and post to Aberdeen before this can happen?

I have an Equiniti account with them which shows my balance so not sure why I'm still getting paper certificates.

wmb194

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6671098/paper-share-certificates

You can have your number of shares logged in your online Equiniti portal but they can still be certificated shares.

If you're going to dematerialise them*, yes, you need to find all of the certificates. If you can't find them you'll need to get replacements issued at some cost. You wouldn't post them to Aberdeen, you'd lodge them with your broker. Scottish Widows Share Dealing nee iWeb is a good option and still accepts the lodging of certificates.

*The current plan is for all certificated shares to be dematerialised at the end of 2027 so you'll need to do something with them.

boingy

Alternatively you could just wait until the "end" of paper certificates, which I think is due by the end of 2027. If you don't have a broker they will just be automatically be lodged digitally with Equitini. You can sell them via Equitini's (expensive) selling service or you could open an account at a broker and sell them there to save some £££.

PoGee

Thanks for replies.

PoGee

Is Equiniti a broker? When the shares turn digital, can I opt to have them logged with a broker instead of with Equiniti?

wmb194

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82023168#Comment_82023168

Equiniti has a broker named EQi. That could be an option but last I looked it is expensive, at least compared to SW/iWeb - £5 per trade, zero account fee.

refluxer

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82023168#Comment_82023168

As I understand it, Equiniti are a share registrar for hundreds of UK-based companies so if you own shares in one of those companies then you'll find them listed on their Shareview site if you have an account but, as mentioned above, this doesn't necessarily mean they're in a digitised form.

You can use Equiniti to sell shares (either digitised or in paper form), but only in the companies they act as the registrar for and it is usually a lot more expensive due to the fact they charge a percentage of the sale, with a high minimum charge and no maximum, meaning that dealing fees can end up running to hundreds of pounds when selling larger amounts.

From memory, I think they charge 1.5% for selling certified (paper) shares with a minimum of £45, so it's not hard to see why online brokers like Scottish Widows look more attractive, with a flat fee of £5 for selling the same UK shares (once digitised).

The deadline for share digitisation has been a rolling one for quite some time now (and still at least 18 months away) and I'm not sure what the ultimate process of automatic digitisation would involve but I would have thought it was more than likely they'd end up in a digitised form with Equiniti, meaning you would need to create an account with a suitable broker (like Scottish Widows) and request a transfer. Equiniti's transfer charges vary according to what type of account you hold - I don't think there are any charges for transferring away from a standard EQi account but there are charges if your shares did turn out to be held digitally within a Corporate Sponsored Nominee (CSN) account. There is a lot of useful help information on Equiniti's site to check all this info.

If you don't want to wait for that to happen, then the other option is to open an account with a suitable broker now and post your certificates to them. Any idea why you're continuing to receive paper shares through the post ? Are you having your dividends automatically reinvested ? You'd need to look into this to determine if and when this would stop, as some action may be needed to ensure this goes down the digital route too.

One other thing to be aware of is that a broker to broker transfer can take many weeks (sometimes even months) to complete, whereas posting certificates to a broker is (in my experience at least) a much faster process which can often be completed in a matter of days, when using the Royal Mail's Guaranteed Special Delivery service to speed up your end.

PoGee

Many thanks for replies. Yes, it's divided reinvestment. I'm sure I contacted Aberdeen about not getting paper certificates (around 2 years ago) but they said that wasn't possible.

I have approximately £4k . If I did nothing in the way of posting paper certificates to a broker or Eqi would I still have the same monetary amount but in an electronic form, with Equiniti?

If that is correct, could I then transfer to another broker so that I can sell them through them (the 'new' broker)?

Apologies for being I bit slow on understanding.

refluxer

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82023453#Comment_82023453

I don't know what the default process would be if you did nothing and digitisation was eventually forced upon you, but I would imagine the best-case scenario you could hope for would be that all of the shares you own would be automatically digitised within Equiniti. I can't see any reason why this wouldn't happen on a 1:1 basis, in which case you'd end up with the same number of digital shares as you held at the time in paper form.

Presumably, once this happens, any reinvested dividends would be added electronically to your Equiniti account.

I don't know what the exact process will be, however, so this is just speculation on my part. One thing is for sure though - they should write to you well in advance of any deadline to inform you of your options.

As I mentioned above, if and when shares are automatically digitised with Equiniti, then you should be free to open a share dealing account with another broker and arrange a transfer.

If you want more info on transfers, select 'Another broker' on this help page and then choose in what form your shares are (or will be) held :

https://equiniti.com/uk/help-and-support/transferring-shares/transfer-shares/

As I thought, it looks like there are no charges for transferring digitised shares from EQi to another broker but there will be charges if the shares are held within a CSN. If held as paper certificates, then you just post them to the new broker and there are no charges due to Equiniti for that.

Just be aware that if the end of 2027 isn't a hard deadline for abolishing paper certificates then this could still potentially drag on for years so if you're fed up of paper certificates now, then opening an account with a broker and posting the certificates to them could resolve this within a week or two.

PoGee

Thanks refluxer