In specie transfer out

General
84

eeek @xray @lee – I feel like I need to explain myself here :grimacing:

Have we written the first line of code? – Short answer here is yes…but

I know there’s always a “But”. I will try and explain & give you a sense of the factors involved here & why it taking a while.

We do have a dedicated Transfers development team with devs working on this as well as expanded Transfers Ops teams. This development team looks after all transfer (ISA, SIPP & both transfer in & out)… we have plans to improve & automate lots of the step for all these processes.

So why is it taking so long:

  1. Truthfully, by far the most demand for transfer & biggest delay have been to SIPP Transfers in (we only support Vanguard atm + very shortly Hargraves & Fidelity). This development work was prioritised but unfortunately has taken far longer than we expect – multiple 3rd party systems Equisoft, Origio, manual processes + other providers. Apricate if you’re trying to transfer out this will feel like a separate process but it often been the same individual working on both problems & its taken a lot of attention.

  2. Manual processing is very difficult without some degree of automation. We need to make sure the right controls are in place to avoid mistakes – you can imagine this is very important when transferring assets from pooled nominees on CREST.

  3. In-specie Transfers out are v.tricky when all you’re holding are fractions. We need a process which only transfer the integer share unit (you can only transfer whole shares). We then need written permission to sell any remaining fractions or shares & this needs to be coordinated with the receiving party

The above is just to give a sense of some of the interdependencies & work going on.
I fully apricate non of this matter when you just want the process to be up & running.

I will just add, we absolutely do read these posts & it is very high up on our list of priorities. We will try and get you more timing & updates shortly.

Thanks
Tom

7 Likes
85

Now that would be sort of believable if you hadn’t been able to get Vanguard SIPP transfers in up and running within days of Vanguard changing their fee structure. Clearly that was prioritised as a business decision.

86

Assuming this won’t be available any time soon, does anyone have any sort of way of minimising interest loss when transfering out? How long are funds likely to be uninvested?

87

Just created an IE account. Looks like it will remain a zombie account. This 2 year+ debacle to provide in-specie transfers out of an ISA has put paid to me moving my significant ISAs from their current home.

88

Agreed. I really like Invest Engine, and so easy to use. However, I won’t be adding new ISA or transferring previous ones until “In Specie Transfer Out” is implemented. On my list of IE wants, this should be prioritised before managed plans, which should then follow asap afterwards as these are also long overdue.

Although I really appreciated the recent update on managed plans for early next year, the concern is trust. When statements are made in 2023 and 2024 that something will be done ‘in a few months’, or something done ‘soon’, but then the year(s) go by, it’s hard to trust any stated timescale. I really hope both In Specie Transfer Out and managed plans will be with IE in much less than a year.