Why does it always take a week past the dividend payment and I always have to contact support to get a dividend payment? The same dividend payments are always paid on the day on my trade212 and etoro accounts.
I noticed that too. It is appalling and I think freetrade is earning interest by holding on the money longer. Because of the late payment, I had missed opportunities.
2 Likes
This came up the other day Freetrade don’t earn interest on your dividend. Might be a delay in receiving the payment might be waiting for an old fashioned cheque to clear!
3 Likes
It was my post. See below.
Sauce - Had a decent conversation with the head of ops who’s department this is.
3 Likes
I understand the dividend receipts don’t go into FT account. But that doesn’t mean a client account doesn’t accrue interest.
I had a solicitor holding funds for me for several months in a client account and I was paid interest in these funds.
This is not the same situation but I find it hard to believe that nominee accounts that could hold significant amounts of money don’t accrue interest, of which FT may be a beneficiary.
If you seriously suspect 
of this practice then I would suggest raising a formal complaint and then taking that complaint to the FCA if you don’t believe e it has been handled properly, financial services are heavily regulated in the UK.
I’ve explained the reason for the process after talking it over to the head of the department. The pennies that stand to gain on this are simply not worth the risk.
2 Likes
I only invest in accumulation products so I am indifferent.
Is there actually any regulation that stops a platform from earning interest money held in overnight nominee accounts, when none has been offered to investors.
I hold some cash on the FT platform and I get interest on the first ‘x’ pounds and nothing on the rest. Does that mean FT doesn’t earn interest?
To be clear I know they can’t invest money held in nominees accounts. I know they can’t invest dividend proceeds but money held pending distribution COULD very well earn interest.
No matter what excuses people come up with to support freetrade, fact is they take far far to long to pay out dividend.
Freetrade simply don’t automate the process.
I am paying tax on a REIT in a freetrade ISA because they haven’t got around to sorting it. 70 days I have been waiting for the money.
As above missed opportunities.
7 Likes
Or explanation that shot down your baseless tin foil hat theory
Right. Freetrade hasn’t got this right and should have improved it by now. They’ve said they planned to improve however they’ve said a lot of things
5 Likes
Hey everyone,
I just wanted to clarify a few things here based on your questions and comments.
We receive all dividends into non-interest paying accounts with our custodians in the different markets we offer. When we receive dividends in USD and EUR we’ll convert to GBP and move the proceeds into our GBP client money account until distributed. UK dividends are swept into the GBP client money account from +1 day after the pay date.
In terms of timings, US-listed companies are always going to be at least + 1 day from the pay date by design - this is how our US broker dealer pays dividends.
Client money accounts are interest bearing accounts. The period of time any dividends sit there prior to distribution is negligible and the movement of cash in this way aligns with client asset rules and our terms and conditions.
To put into perspective some of the late payments, across the last twelve months we saw about 5% of the total value of all dividends paid late. That’s including the period before we started automating some of the processes with US listed shares.
Our aim is to always pay out dividends as soon after they are received as possible.
17 Likes
Thanks for the update.
Are there plans to automate processing divs on non UK/US shares? I have a bunch of Canadian stocks and these payments frequently lag behind.
We’ve introduced automations on our side for all US listed stocks. The time frames there are dependent on receipt of dividends from our US broker dealer though so there can be delays especially we find with foreign companies that are US listed.
We want to implement similar automations for the U.K. but unfortunately it’s more challenging because dividends can be paid through a variety of ways (unlike the US market) and the U.K. can still include payment by physical cheque!
7 Likes
Waiting since 1st September for one dividend payment.
2 Likes
Hey @neilb and @Beenthere
Can we please keep things civil here. @Beenthere I appreciate your frustration with this delayed dividend payment. If you want to share the stock then I can get this investigated.
LBOW
they say they have paid out
We’ve received this payment, but have had to query it with the registrar as it doesn’t appear that they’ve made the correct payment to us. We’ve been chasing them but they’ve been slow to answer emails and won’t answer questions over the phone.
We’re hoping to have this paid out by the end of the week. Drop me a message if that’s not happened and I can see what’s happening.
3 Likes
Has there been any thoughts on adding some dividend status in the app? E.g pending payment, received, distributed etc?
I think one of the main issues is just not knowing the status , if you’ve received etc
11 Likes
A similar system for transfers would be good too.
If I could see the status in-app, it would save contacting support and them having to check.
3 Likes
Paid last night thanks
1 Like
Bit of luck here wanted the money to invest in SOHO. They fell constantly as i waited 13 days for the dividend.
May have got the bottom of the market up 4% today. Although price is like yo-yo.
1 Like