UK Execution Partner Unplanned Downtime - Order Cancellation Queued

Sorry to jump onto your comment, but exact same issue for me.

Official account on twitter shows that it is resolved but doesn’t actually seem to be?

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My stop loss still stuck at pending cancellation.

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By looking at all the posts on this forum on the 18th Feb there were only 3 posts (for around 600k customers on the app) with regards to order filling. All of which seemed to have been related to low liquidity of specific stocks. Not sure what you were talking about.

Update: My pending limit buy cancellation seems to have just cleared, reserved funds have been added back to my available.

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Cash now available. Sergey you obviously have some influence :slight_smile: Thank you. Hope all other investors are now sorted too. Best wishes, Andy.

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I’ve been surprised to hear about a ‘UK execution partner’ in a way that makes it sound as if there is just one such partner. I had been under the impression that for LSE-listed stocks, Freetrade itself was responsible for executing orders, rather than passing them through an intermediary.

Does anyone know if the process that Freetrade uses to fulfil orders is described anywhere in more detail than in posts like the following? It might be useful to know more about how orders are handled.

Yep - all sorted. Thanks Sergey :slightly_smiling_face: :+1:

It has just taken some time to update in the app since their last public message. Cheers.

I still have an instant order pending from this morning. Anxious to know what’s happening with it


With the LSE you either get direct access to the exchange or go via a Market Maker aka Retail Service Provider. You can mostly derive which market makers FT use from the order books. I don’t want to speculate as to whether it was the market maker or another 3rd party FT use to route orders. I think it would be best to let FT offer an explanation or let Mr @finki shed some light if he knows more about the process for sending limit orders

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Kind thanks for the “Mr” prefix. Very polite.

Like you’ve said you can derive the likely market makers the stock is going to via their RTS disclosures. They use a very narrow band of market makers - so it’s not too hard to guess.

What’s the stock in particular?

As you also said, FT have publicly said on these pages that they route to market via the Iress RSP. Is it clear whether it’s this “partner” they are referring to or not? Given that I placed UK market orders this morning with no issue I suspect the answer is no - otherwise my trades should have failed too. So therefore it has to be the actual MM handling the limit - which is weird as it suggests when limits are placed FT route to a specific MM if the price can’t immediately be met. Which (kinda) makes sense as you never (that i’ve seen) see your trade directly on the Order Book if you place a limit with FT in the way you do, for example, with DeGiro. So it sounds like an oddity at the MM’s side
 most likely Winterfloods or Shore Capital based on previous volumes disclosed.

That probably didn’t help.

:man_facepalming:

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That’s very useful! I do hope Freetrade come back with a full description of what happened as soon as they are able to do so. What you wrote sounds like a likely explanation, though.

If that was what happened, then I think it would have been very helpful if customer service could have been a bit more open with information. They could have said, for example, that some orders which had been placed with one market maker were experiencing a problem, but that only a certain number of orders were affected, and that other orders were being sent to and processed by other market makers and were being filled. That would have been very reassuring. Even using the phrase ‘one of our partners’ instead of ‘our UK execution partner’ would have been better!

Sadly, I think most companies try by default to say as little as possible when problems arise, leaving customers to imagine the worst.

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The unfortunate reality is that no one (absolutely no one) can execute and settle and trade on the LSE or US markets without a “partner” somewhere in the process. If you go direct you’ll need an RSP relationship, sent down a datapipe you don’t own. If you go via a 3rd party you go via them who in turn go down a datapipe they don’t own. Once you’ve traded you’ve got to settle. In the UK that means owning your custody account (like FT do) with Crest/Euroclear. Messaging with them is down another datapipe you lease - most likely sending swift messages (another “partner”) down a BT line (technically, another “partner”). If you have to trade FX before routing to your outsourced provider then that’s another “partner”. Or if you outsource part of your custody (say, US, like FT do) then you route orders to and they settle on your behalf
but that’s a 3rd party relationship, an outsourced provider, reliant on a messaging pipe to assess stock/cash levels pre and post trade. Plus the bank that provides you intraday liquidity (your Crest ‘cap’) plays a vital part too
 wait til you grow so much you have no settlement bandwidth left
 ouch!!! So your bank is effectively a ‘partner’ too and central to your ability to keep trading as they are central to your ability to settle. If you can’t do one you won’t be allowed to do the other.

This is not an all encompassing example and I’m fully aware there are nuances within everyones operations. But it’s to point out
no one truly has every aspect of their trading infrastructure truly under their sole control. If you publicly say otherwise you’re run the risk of exposure - when one of your “partners” halts trading in a stock or changes your FX process intraday.

** Not a dig at FT. Been impressed with there work recently.

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I nominate the above as required reading for all new customers.

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Ah, nice. Appreciated.

Or the rantings of a mad man who’s a little too invested in this s&&t

Who knows?

:roll_eyes:

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My pending instant order was rejected after about 8 hours. I guess it could have been worse.