Transfer out shares to other brokers

I don’t think we got the answer - can we transfer out ISA to another broker? What do I need to know to do that?

Would like to also get an answer if I move out of UK and freetrade doesn’t support the country I will be residing in.
Does Freetrade offer in-kind transfer to another broker?

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I’ve heard the answer is no for both directions.

All ISA providers must allow you to transfer your ISA funds to another provider at least via cash. What they don’t have to do is facilitate in situ transfers of shares/funds. So for some platforms (and this includes Freetrade) you have to sell your investments and the transfer will take place as cash.

Facilitating in situ transfer out is also a sign of a mature and confident platform, in my opinion. All major platforms facilitate it.

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I am considering to move my whole ISA portfolio to Freetrade (transfers in are allowed as shares but not out). But part of that, is planning for contingency should present conditions or circumstances change, i.e. needing to move my portfolio elsewhere just as it is happening now.

However, the high toll of having to sell all holdings (most in foreign currency) and repurchasing is a main concern and main deterrant for me to move to Freetrade, and I supsect this may be the case for other users. I without this posibility I will probably not move my holdings to Freetrade.

I feel it would be useful to know wether plans exist to implement this and roughly when will these be implemented. Having some clarity and information about future plans to allow transfer out as shares would be very useful to me – and I suspect to many. E.g. I’d be completely fine knowing this will be implemented in say the next 2 years even if it had a fee attached.

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I have moved most of my things to ii. In part because they can do in specie transfers in and out.

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II charges £10 a month custody fees tho, prety steep. But I agree, I rather pay more and have a contingency plan in place that does not involve cashing all my investments. That’s why Freetrade should implement transfering out as shares (like they implemented transferring in).

I’d also vote for transfers into FT. Can we do this?

You can already do in specie transfer in for ISA accounts. Not sure about GIA accounts.

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This is good news. I will google and find out for the GIA.

Can we get an update on this for GIA, this is a massive drawback if you cannot transfer to other brokers which may offer features not available on the platform.

I’ve submitted a shares transfer from my FT GIA over to my ii trading account, I’ll let you know how it goes.

Yeah, so they don’t offer GIA transfers, my request was rejected.

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Pathetic. They really need to sort these barriers to entry and exit!

I think it is important to to be able to transfer out, as well as into the various Freetrade accounts “in-situ”
Agreeing with Dimitri, that Freetrade is great to be with, but someone circumstances (financial or otherwise) could change and may need to move to another broker.
It offers a better maturer level of service, and more confidence in using such a broker.
If can be done less that would be great, however agree with Dimitri about the his fee suggestions as a way to reduce abuse.
Thank you.

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Any update on this?

Can anyone from the team or community explain why FT does not currently support in specie transfers out, when it does support in specie transfers in?

Is there a plan or a road map to begin supporting in specie transfers out?

It makes me slightly uneasy about placing further assets on the platform, as I do not want to be locked in or forced to transfer as cash in the event I might wish to, for a range of personal reasons which speak nothing to my customer experience with FT.

I would suspect it ranks as highly as a web-app for many investors as a critical functionality flaw with FT’s current compelling but lean offering.

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@Viktor @Freetrade_Team

Would be good to know what the thinking is behind not offering the feature at present.

& Whether is likely to be offered soon.

It does make long-term investors apprehensive about placing further assets on the platform, as it is highly suboptimal to sell to cash before transferring.

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Surely for ISA accounts they would have to allow in specie transfers? Otherwise the benefit of the wrapper would be lost in a transfer.

@Alan62

At present FT’s policy is to sell to cash, and transfer as cash. This is allowed in ISA transfer rules. But of course not particularly desirable especially if you’re a long-term buy-and-hold investor.

The ability to facilitate in specie transfers out is a distinguishing feature of a mature platform. The big boys all offer it as a matter of course, it’s only really the fly-by-night platforms (T212 looking at you) which do not.