Barclays Stockbrokers move to Smart Investor?

[wilwak]

Has anyone else woken up this morning to find that their old accounts at Barclays Stockbrokers haven't moved over to the new Smart Investor platform as planned for today?

Their online support chat and telephone lines are 'experiencing exceptional levels of calls'.

If it has gone wrong you think they'd email or put a notice up on the website.

They asked us all to check everything today!

[wilwak]

Ok. It seems that the only way to see the accounts is by using Pinsentry to log in.

If you log in using passcode and memorable details they don't display!

First impressions of the new site..... not good.

The old site was slick and quick. Perfect for dealing. This site is cumbersome.

X div dates aren't displayed any more.

And...... all the online history has completely gone. Can't view dividends and transactions at all.

I can feel a slow inefficient transfer to another broker coming on. :-(

[Jon39]

Is the IT mess that you describe, in addition to their enormous increase in fees ?

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[dingg]

firstly why did you start another thread? it just confuses things and I'm confused enough with this mornings debacle

anyhow - eventually spoke to a british person after holding for almost an hour, and managed to get logged onto my main account and all investments were showing there ,btw you can see divi info just need to look for it.

second account I was locked out of , initially was told they'd need to send out new passcode in 3 working days , after being quite forthright about that not being acceptable to me I was put up the ladder 3 times after asking to speak to the persons supervisor (indian call centre I'd say) and eventually spoke to someone who managed to get me into my account , breathes sigh of relief , lets hope the system is better when business opens tomorrow.

re fees according to the online estimator I will be a couple of hundred quid p.a. better off using the new portal , I haven't investigated any further than that tbh as couldn't be bothered with the pain of transferring to another broker , unless someone tells me how easy it is and can come up with some decent recommendations I guess I'll stay put (depending on how it performs this week)

eta you can log in with your membership number and passcode as well as the method you describe

Edited by dingg on Monday 28th August 12:42

[Jon39]

dingg said:

re fees according to the online estimator I will be a couple of hundred quid p.a. better off using the new portal ...

Are you certain about that Grant ?

For years, I have been paying them £15 + VAT =£18, every 6 months.

Now they are expecting me to pay hundreds of pounds a year, but they seem to think capping that for the next three years, is going to make me feel better.

They probably expected that the mountain of paperwork which they sent to customers, would distract from their enormous fee increase.

I don't know any more about it, but on my earlier thread someone did seem to indicate, that customers holding funds (not shares) might have been paying Barclays more than the annual total fee of £36 already. Of course, as I am sure you will know, with funds there are even more hidden fees being paid within a fund anyway.

Edited by Jon39 on Monday 28th August 13:16

[wilwak]

So it seems that most things on the new system needs me to use the card reader so everything is now slowed down. I know it's supposed to be more secure but it's having the result of keeping me out too. I simply don't want to carry my card reader and card with me everywhere.

I used to trade regularly on the spur of the moment when I saw a good buy. Now I have to get out my debit card and use the pin gadget. I also look after my wife's investments which means I have to carry my wife's debit card rather than her!

I've been looking at swapping to Hargreaves Landsdown. I know someone who uses IWeb but that seems quite basic. Any other suggestions?

[NickCQ]

Jon39 said:

I don't know any more about it, but on my earlier thread someone did seem to indicate, that customers holding funds (not shares) might have been paying Barclays more than the annual total fee of £36 already. Of course, as I am sure you will know, with funds there are even more hidden fees being paid within a fund anyway.

That was me. I think Vanguard charge around 10 bps on equity tracker funds so I am not losing too much sleep!

[Jon39]

NickCQ said:

That was me. I think Vanguard charge around 10 bps on equity tracker funds so I am not losing too much sleep!

Thanks Nick. With a tracker there are still share transactions, so that is one example of the additional hidden costs paid by customers..

I have been fortunate / lucky / or skillful enough, to regularly beat the indices, so Vanguard is not my bag. Suddenly facing a huge cost increase in one leap is annoying, but it is probably more of the principle of their action, rather than the arithmetic effect on future portfolio performance.

I have another self-select equity ISA running, which funnily enough a few years ago went the other way, and dropped their fee to zero providing there was a sufficient amount in the scheme. Could put more business their way to avoid overpaying with Barclays.

I get the feeling that Barclays still have not properly recovered from the crisis that began in 2007. They might be continuing with off loading their low profit activities.

Edited by Jon39 on Tuesday 29th August 12:04

[PostHeads123]

Piss poor migration from Barclays on this, I can login see summary balances but no detail every time I click a page access is blocked from there end I wasn't a Barclays bank account holder before. I've effectively currently have no ability to online trade now and there customers services have massive queues. I hope Barclays will cover any potential losses clients get as a result of this !

[NickCQ]

Jon39 said:

I get the feeling that Barclays still have not properly recovered from the crisis that began in 2007. They might be continuing with off loading their low profit activities.

I imagine they'd have offloaded it before spending cash on a systems refresh - unless this is putting lipstick on the pig to make it look nice to a potential acquirer. It seems to me that banks are focusing much more on their funds offerings as they generate fee income without consuming liquidity or capital.

[Losangeles]

Barclays Stockbrokers was brilliant. Smart Investor seems a misnomer. Much of the easy functionality has gone....early days but on the face of it, it is awful. Held on for 30 minutes to a recorded message saying they would be with me shortly - gave up intending to send an email instead. Turns out I can't do that without a PinSentry machine which they have not sent me .....so its hold on forever....or give up......or make a Complaint....which I have done.

They were /are offering a penalty free transfer if you don't like the new arrangements. This is a useful link to compare cost of alternatives. http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/diyinvesting/ar...

I like the look of AJ Bell who administrated the Barclays SIPPS anyway, but will want to see their website in operation before I switch. What a disaster...takes something that works brilliantly; spend a lot of time and money turning it into something which doesn't....

[dingg]

re fees Jon

I do up to 100 trades a year and according to their sliding scale I will be about 180 a year better off with the reduced trade price.

anomaly I have noticed on the new portal is if I refresh the page I end up with a blank page and have to log in again (this is using chrome) not impressed , impressions so far is that I preferred the old portal to this new one its cumbersome and looks to have been designed by an amateur

[Jon39]

dingg said:

re fees Jon

I do up to 100 trades a year and according to their sliding scale I will be about 180 a year better off with the reduced trade price.

Thank you Grant. Now I understand why our fees have been so different.
Mine have been only £36 per year, including VAT. Happily, an insignificant percentage fee. They must have finally realised.

Last year I did no trades at all, apart from corporate actions, but that is my normal strategy.
During 2016 there was a portfolio increase of 17.7%, plus dividends received 4.4%, producing a total annual growth for the year of 22.17%.
That performance was of course, helped by the drop in Sterling value.

Your 100 trades each year is a lot of work. Did your extra effort, enable you to achieve a much better 2016 result than me?

I will be 'voting with feet'. They have been getting use of virtually free cash, but they probably don't know, or even care.
It has been mentioned, that their telephone helpline is being ovewhelmed. A pity that, because they won't have time to look on here, to get free feedback about their new arrangements. As usual, I expect their employed focus groups, told them it was marvellous.

Edited by Jon39 on Wednesday 30th August 12:07

[Super Slo Mo]

For me the jury's still out on the new site. Still figuring it out at the moment. I'm not too impressed with the new charges though, I don't do that many trades per year, but it still looks like I'll be quite a bit worse off thanks to the percentage based fee.

IG looks quite cost effective as an alternative, anyone have any views on them?

[PostHeads123]

I think they may be being a bit sly on the charges as Barclays is only one of the few brokers who are 'approved' by employers, for example they are the only broker my employer has approved that I can use so Im stuck with them and cant move. They provide a feed to my employer so they know what I've been up to, I assume a lot of people are in same boat.

[Jon39]

PostHeads123 said:

I think they may be being a bit sly on the charges as Barclays is only one of the few brokers who are 'approved' by employers, for example they are the only broker my employer has approved that I can use so Im stuck with them and cant move. They provide a feed to my employer so they know what I've been up to, I assume a lot of people are in same boat.

An interesting aspect.
I assume that you are employed in the financial world, where it is of course important to be seen to maintain a high level of honest behaviour.

You may be interested to know that at least one of the 'big 4' accountancy firms, went to the extreme on this point last year.
Previously their rule was, employees or close relations, must have no shareholding in any client that the employee is involved with. Nothing wrong with that.
Now, it has been changed to, no client that the accountancy firm is involved with.
Therefore, you buy shares today in XYZ, then say in six months time, XYZ becomes a client (even though you have no work involvement), you must immediately sell your shares in XYZ.
In other words, it is pointless for those employees or partners, to own any shares at all, because there would be a huge risk of having to sell when there is a market decline.

Have I made you feel slightly better now?

Edited by Jon39 on Wednesday 30th August 13:32

[wilwak]

Early days for me. I'm out and about this week so using the pinsentry is ridiculous!

I'll have a proper look at it from home next week and if I still don't like it then it looks like I'll have a long drawn out transfer process elsewhere.

But where?

I'm sure Barclays are swamped with transfer out requests so it could be painful.

[fido]

Not that impressed so far. I can't even find the company I want to buy shares in!

[menousername]

Have a small investment ISA with them. Buy to hold nothing too exciting but keep an eye on it almost daily.

Ironically it started out as part of their retail banking services then was migrated into BS about 24 months ago I think, now its been migrated back.

Not tried mine yet but one thing i do not want is to have to log into the full barclays website with my current account etc to check the ISA, for convenience and security reasons, which is what it appears I must do.

One thing I do want, if they must put it in the same space, is for it to be available via the banking app, which it is not.

So it seems they have given me what I do not want and not given me what I do.

There must be some bigger picture we are missing. It was easy to figure out why it was migrated to BS - consolidation / savings and an attempt to entice people like me into share dealing. Moving it back? Mifid2 or some other regulation? Balance sheet?

Always praised Barclays as a simple efficient banking service. Good app, left alone, not forced into any silly premier account with cash back for £10 a month etc etc. But seem to be losing the plot a bit. Seem to update their app every week and thats becoming less user-friendly too. If I now need to carry around their oversized pin sentry device (how overdue is that repacement?) then I dont see the point of using this service going forward

[roughboy]

I can't even login to their new site. It asks me for characters of a memorable word which I don't have. There is nowhere to set one up either. I have tried for two days to contact them and can't get through even though I was on hold for an hour.

There was nothing wrong with the old site...it worked, so why the hell did they change it?