Withdrawing cash

First Time Investing šŸ£
1

Hello - if I have settled cash in my account, how long will it take to reach my bank account if I withdraw it?

2

Google and the app say 3-5 working days.

3

I donā€™t know how others feel but I think it is totally unacceptable that while transfers of money into your FreeTrade account are almost instant, it takes 3 to 5 working days to transfer money out and into your nominated account. I am now in overdraft thanks to money I tried to transfer yesterday afternoon not yet arriving. Almost any other savings provider I have had is an instant transfer, I switched away from one provider due to their insistance of a 24 hour wait!

I had been thinking of joining Plus and using FreeTrade GIA as my emergency cash account while at the same time opening a modest SIPP. I am definitely going to re-think that if it really does take 3-5 days to get your money as that time-lag would render that product totally useless for my purposes.

EDIT: removal of an irrelevant line in comment.

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4

I completely agree, itā€™s the one issue I have with Freetrade. Most businesses now for any transfers are within 2-3 hours, itā€™s just far too long to wait to get funds back into your account. I have plus, the sipp and ISA and was paying Ā£17.99 a month up until recently but waiting 5 days to have cash credit my account and thatā€™s not from shares I was selling, it was just a cash transfer.

Iā€™m a big Freetrade fan but it is one thing I think they really need to prioritise, itā€™s going to hold them back with getting new customers, as no one wants to wait nearly a week to get their cash.

Surely there is a work around for this and could be sorted? I appreciate there may be cost implications for them, so that might be the issue.

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5

Yes its frustrating but as the old saying goes fail to planā€¦

Its not hidden that it will take 3 - 5 days for the money to hit your bank account.

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6

Definitely needs addressing though

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7

Not entirely sure this follows. It stated 3-5 working days at the point where I tried to withdraw the money thinking it would be reasonably instantaneous. Accept that I could have tried to check this beforehand but frankly it didnā€™t occur to me that any financial institution would have such a slow turnaround, it seems so amateurish.

Anyway it doesnā€™t matter, Iā€™m now going to save Ā£5 per month by not going Plus which is the revenue FreeTrade will be losing as well. The whole point of emergency cash is that you can get it in an emergency, not 3-5 days later than you needed it! The SIPP I was going to open is a nice to have, I donā€™t really need it.

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8

Freetrade has said they would like to improve withdrawals but havenā€™t stated whether it is a priority.

On a broader note, itā€™s typically considered unwise to have money invested that you could need to access in a matter of days.

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10

This might be the core of your issue.

Freetrade is not a savings account and should not be considered an instant access emergency fund. Theyā€™ve always said it was 3-5 days for withdrawals.

If you need an emergency fund with instant access you definitely need to open a saving or similar account specifically for instant access.

If you need truly reliable instant access cash you probably need to keep it with your bank.

Within half an hour to 2 hours. Iā€™d go with a separate savings account

Within days or weeks, then you can look at cash locked away like freetrade, NS&I or notice accounts

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11

Absolutely Neil. However, this wasnā€™t investment, it was cash sitting in the GIA, hadnā€™t intended investing it.

Indeed, because I typically wonā€™t be able to max out my Ā£20k ISA allowance, all my possible investing money goes in there and the GIA is empty. I had thought of using that as simply a cash account to earn a little interest on otherwise inactive money but sadly it doesnā€™t look like that is an option. Iā€™ve just opened a Yorkshire Building Society account to see if that works better. If not then I have a Tesco savings account that I definitely know reliably does instant transfers.

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12

I use Marcus for emergency cash 1.5% interest, they transfer almost immediately. Maybe 10 minutes max. But I also keep some cash in me current account so thatā€™s properly instant.

Though interest isnā€™t a concern for me for emergency money. So itā€™s really just a bonus

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