Apologies for any impatience but it does seem to me that the trading and settlement time is too long and needs to be shorter; It can take over 4 days, more so over a weekend and bank holiday. That is a lot of time when a portfolio is practically ‘up on bricks’
Please, no pro forma / AI replies!
Do you think Invest Engine sets the settlement times? This is determined by national exchanges and central securities depositories in each market. Normal for ETFs is T+2 outside of USA.
And yes the market calendars determines those are working days, not including weekends or bank holidays.
Feel lucky you are not 20 years older as settlement cycle was T+5 until 2001 and then T+3 until 2014 when it moved to T+2. The USA is already on T+1.
I fully understand that settlement times are set by the system but IE’s competitors allow you to sell one stock and immediately invest in something else. They even use pre-market and afterhours trading.
I suspect that competitors fund that facility themselves whereas IE likes to earn interest during the settlement time. Unfortunately with so many competitors offering zero transaction fees the USP of IE is rapidly slipping away.
For brokers who are also massive systematic internalizers (like IBKR/T212) doing most trades OTC then it is easier to net the cash leg, to give illusion cash is immediately available for another trade. I think IE executes all trades on exchange so there will be a real counterparty.
Thank you for that. However, the fact remains that to a member of the public the settlement times do not compare favourably to their competitors.
What is worse is that once cash is ‘available’ it takes some days for a customer to receive it in their bank account whereas IE’s competitors do the transfer to another bank within minutes if not seconds.
I am expecting to have to ‘advise’ a family member how to invest an inheritance. I will struggle to explain the advantage of IE over, say, T212 to them. Indeed I would be interested to hear how IE is better than T212.
There is 1 offering that IE has which T212 doesn’t. Fee-free SIPP. Only reason I’m here really. Haha
Agreed but Freetrade offers a fee-free SIPP.
Eh. I have used about 12 stockbrokers over 20 years and never have been able to withdraw uncleared funds to an external bank account.
As with T212, its a Bulgarian company regulated in Cyprus and thus the investment compensation scheme there only covers 20,000 Euros. So if the Cyprus unit went bust or there was fraud in Cyprus or Cyprus was invaded; any investment asset held there may be lost over 20k.
They mention FCA compensation, but that is smoke and mirrors and only covers cash (pounds) held with them in their UK client account.
Yes, but on T212 after you sell stocks then you can invest those funds in another stock. On IE you have to wait for the first sale to clear.
In DIY portfolios:
What does “order in process” mean? – InvestEngine https://share.google/w9pAOZvLSAOGLA7JD
DIY Portfolios: What You Can and Can’t Do
You can:
Reinvest up to 95% of a sell order’s value immediately into new ETFs.
In T212 you can revest up to 100% of a sell order’s value immediately into new ETFs.
In T212 you can rebalance your portfolio.
In T212 in the rare situation that an order is not settled within a minute or so then you can sell the portion of an ETF that is not part of the sale, i.e. sell a part of the ETF while another part is being sold.
All I would like to know is apart from offering a SIPP (which Freetrade will do for free), what are the advantages of IE over T212.