Yes, this is a dealbreaker for me as well. I’m planning to transfer my ISA from IE to Interactive Brokers as soon as this nightmare is over. They charge £3/month, but at least I have control over my investment and they do realtime trading (and also trade single company shares, not just ETFs).
as a very new investor its very worrying to hear about the delays to cash in funds, moving/rebalancing and more critically selling are deal breakers for me, planning ahead and waiting upto 7 days is ok but 1 month+ is not.
as IE is new to the platform scene the possible hoped for sipp and stock additions will only make IE management a lot busier?
i also dabble with lightyear and the excellent T212, and the new ISA season kicks off in 7 weeks.
Yes I have the new ISA season on my radar, hopefully I get my awaiting settlement sorted pronto. The potential for InvestEngine is good, I do like the app but it will be this issue that gets my money into the hands of a different provider.
As of today I am on Day 71 of “Awaiting Settlement” of my longest outstanding transaction with a few others in between.
We’re getting into ISA season now so I am starting to get very concerned
Are the delays primarily on more obscure ETF’s? I’ve experienced delays with a Euro Hybrid Corporate Bond ETF, which is relatively obscure - but not with any ‘mainstream’ equity ETF’s, like Global, FTSE100 or SP500 etc
Perhaps IE could add a ‘expected days to settle’ field for each ETF - so we can see/be warned before dealing of potential issues
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In terms of providers they are fairly well known. In my case it’s Invesco, UBS and WisdomTree, whereas the funds are probably a bit less mainstream.
I have a total of ten outstanding trades awaiting settlement with the oldest being the one from WisdomTree since 9 Dec 2022. What they all do have in common is a small fund size of less than 100 million however, the UBS fund is over 100 million.
Here’s a breakdown of the ten trades I have:
2x IE00B23LNN70 - PSRU: Invesco FTSE RAFI UK 100 (Fund Size: GBP 9 m)
1x IE00B23D9570 - PSRM: Invesco FTSE RAFI Emerging Markets (Fund Size: GBP 23 m)
3x IE00BJP5NL42 - UHYP: Invesco USD High Yield Corporate Bond ESG (Fund Size: GBP 7 m)
3x IE00BD4TY345 - AUAD: UBS MSCI Australia (Fund Size: GBP 305 m)
1x IE00BZ56SY76 - EGRP: Wisdomtree Eurozone Quality Dividend Growth (Fund Size: GBP 4 m)
Fund size info courtesy of justetf.com
The whole T+3 thing has been around for nearly 20 years. This is what the American SEC has to say about T+3 and whatever they say soon filters down to the rest of the world markets…
T+3 is well out of date! T+2 is standard settlement for institutional investors - some platforms may extend that settlement period for retail investors. I think the ‘problem’ here is that the trades aren’t actually being executed, but instead we’re receiving some kind of price lock.
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In my case its “Amundi Prime Global Govies (PRIG)” with a fund size of GBP 26 m.
Indeed, the rule of thumb should be not to invest outside the mainstream with IE or else you’ll wait for months to settle.
Still no update (or ANY kind of progress) from IE other than the standard text block they always send you.
This is the response I had last week Monday:
"Thank you for contacting InvestEngine.
I am afraid that in the rare cases when we are unable to settle orders it is due to market forces such as high volatility and illiquidity of certain securities that are beyond our control. It is therefore very difficult to estimate how long the delay may last.
Unfortunately once the order is passed on to the counterparties it can no longer be cancelled.
We can assure you that our Settlement team is in constant touch with our brokers and other counterparties, trying to push your order through as soon as possible.
Your funds are always accounted for and are secure in your portfolio.
Thank you for your patience and please let us know if you have any other questions.
Best wishes,"
Problem is, these cases are not at all “rare”.
Yes, that is the standard text block that gets copy-pasted into every email regarding awaiting settlements. I already got it twice! 
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Wow, after 72 days, my trades finally got settled.
I did put in a “Sell Portfolio” order immediately, any bets how long this will take?
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After 78 days (2 months, 16 days) my oldest outstanding purchase finally settled this morning. Now I still have a few others outstanding on the 44 days (1 month, 13 days) overdue mark.
These are the ETF’s currently not settling in reasonable time frames:
Invesco FTSE RAFI UK 100 (fund size: GBP 9 m)
Invesco USD High Yield Corporate Bond ESG (fund size: GBP 7 m)
UBS MSCI Australia (fund size: GBP 299 m)
The frustration I have is that you would think because the fund size is small, they would love to take your money so why take so long to settle? Then again, the Australia fund is medium-ish sized so what’s the excuse there? Invesco and UBS are well known vendors so its not like you bought an obscure, dodgey fund from a fly-by-night cowboy outfit. Having said that, my 78 day overdue trade was with a WisdomTree fund.
I would really love to know the real reasons as to why settlement takes so long with certain trades. Why only on this platform as I have never had this nightmare experience on any of the other investment platforms I have shares and ETF’s with. (LightYear, Trading212 and FreeTrade)
Overall, I have to admit, my confidence in the InvestEngine platform has taken quite a knock. Whether its their fault or not; from my point of view my dealings are with IE therefore I see them as being responsible for everything good and bad.
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I think shrimper pretty much nailed the scenario of what happened… the fund would probably love to take your money - its the market maker who probably doesn’t want to be bothered with those transactions.
Totally agree on the confidence knock on IE… I will close some portfolios at IE because of that.
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Not sure how applicable it is in our situation but all the keywords are there: “failure to settle on time”, “technical issues with legacy systems”, “liquidity of the underlying security”, “purposely delay settlement after weighing up the penalty cost for failing and the cost to create a new product” 
But if market maker delays are the central issue, it should affect more parties than just InvestEngine?
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Yup, it really does not make sense at all as to why this issue is more prevalent on certain platforms compared to others.
At times I wonder if an etf is really all that great and would it not be better just to buy the actual shares of the top 10 holdings of a particular ETF you’re interested in.
The obvious downside is that you could end up with a portfolio consisting out of a bucket-load of shares.
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The reality is that this platform is free and all single transactions have no fees attached, but there are costs associated to our transactions which IE is taking in its belly. IE is probably trying to keep this cost as low as possible on their hand allowing more liberties to the market maker than other providers do.
IE is a start-up, most likely a loss making start-up that is trying to lure in as many customer as possible before adding fees and cost to the consumers, trying to become a profit making enterprise as phase 2.
Only then they will be able to fix this ridiculous situation with Awaiting Settlements.
It’s up to you to decide if you prefer this pain with no fees or another platform with fees and speedy settlements.
…all speculations here… obviously…
P.S. I’m leaving soon to another provider. I’m fed up with this and other situations I found myself into. On top of no quick development of the platform, no new functions, no real innovation and most important of all no listening to us here in the forum QA the platform and giving valuable insights and recommendations. Sorry!
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I wonder if the delay is caused by the fractional part… I assume whole shares can settle quickly, but the market maker or IE holds the fractional part until enough users sell/buy orders equal a whole share.
Whether there would be some mechanism for IE to own the fractional portion (maybe invest in 1 share of each ETF they offer) so it would not require to physically be bought/sold… could the investment cost be less than the reputational hit they take instead.
Even if whole shares could settle immediately and the fraction be the only part delayed may help a little… dunno
I love the platform so hate to see this continue to be the largest drag and negative of the service.
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Yeah, I’m leaving too at the end of the financial year. Too bad IE couldn’t sort out these issues.