Investing with Charles Schwab
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Guys,
A post on here about another provider, posted here because I think I'll get a better and swifter response than I would on PH.
Almost exactly three years ago I opened an account with Schwab on the recommendation of some folks on PH, and transferred some money into it from my UK bank account. It was remarkably easy; the actual transfer was from a UK bank (mine - clearly!) to a Schwab account at Citibank in the UK, in Sterling. I saw the credit on the Schwab trading account in USD a few minutes later. If they charged me a handling or exchange fee then it was tiny. I could then trade using this money, which is exactly what I wanted to do.
Today, keen to buy some bargain-basement SMCI shares, I transferred £1 from my UK account to the Schwab Citibank account with a view to moving a larger chunk once the process was proven. However it's failed to appear in my Schwab trading account. I've contacted Schwab both in their on-line chat and (twice) by 'phone and they can't explain where the money is; they insisted that I had to put in the IBAN and SWIFT numbers to do an 'external account wire transfer', which is simply not the case when doing a UK-to-UK bank transfer. They repeatedly referred me to their Help Document P-10740369 despite me having already followed the instructions in that document to the letter. The best explanation they could eventually offer is that it can take up to three days for such transfers to take effect. When asked why it was so much easier three years ago they flatly didn't believe that I had done this three years ago, despite there being transactions in my Schwab account to show that I did.
Am I being dense? Has something changed at Schwab that means that this previously-trivial process is now laced with lizards? Have I missed something? Does anyone have any contact numbers for someone at Schwab who can answer questions better than the guys on their help center(!) lines?
Thanks.
P.S. The money is still not in the Schwab account, despite it having left my UK account at 8.20am today and my UK bank (First Direct/HSBC) confirming that the transaction had gone through and would be credited within a maximum of two hours at Citibank.
P.P.S. I do notice that SMCI dropped over 4% today, so perhaps Schwab have actually saved me some financial pain!
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Hi O,
Wires of this nature can take minutes or it can take hours.
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Just occasionally, they can get stuck.
Happened to me with a 4 figure sum (might have been 5, now I think about it) some years back.
Santander (might still have been Abbey then!) apologised and gave me £300 for their poor processing.
Not a nice feeling, although a £1 transfer ought to be simple enough, you’d think! -
Guys, thanks for the replies. And particular thanks to Adam for calling me yesterday morning to offer some helpful wisdom.
The consensus is that Charles Schwab is excellent, which fits with my experience. The downside is that the token £1 transaction I made two days ago still hasn't appeared in my Schwab account. I'm not fussed about chasing down the £1, but I will be significantly fussed if I throw another £1000 in and that disappears down the same black hole. Given that this was the reason for making the initial £1 transaction then I don't quite know what to do.
Maybe I should step away from the whole thing. Maybe I should try £500. Maybe I should do something else and let my investments in IM do the work.
Thanks again for your input.
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I use both T212....GIA....and Interactive Investor.....ISA.....both will let you buy non GB equities at a spot exchange rate. II do charge a modest trading fee per transaction and a £4.99 monthly fee, though.
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Hi,
You are free to discuss whatever online brokers you wish. However lets try and keep it factual;. Trading 212 DO charge fx spreads as well as various other fees. They do not offer real spot fx rates. They can call it whatever they want but it is not 'spot'. Schwab on the other hand do not because once you are denominated in USD you stay in USD until you transfer out(back to GBP). Schwab are the largest investment managers in the world with $10T under management.
Thanks
Adam
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And T212 offer a pretty much unbeatable 4.9% on uninvested cash, paid daily......
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T212 uninvested cash is held in money market funds, known as QMMFs which are NOT protected by the FSCS so your money, by definition, is at risk.
Given T212 undertake unregulated business and we operate a regulated business I think it best to move on from discussing T212 here. Many thanks
Adam
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Minor update: remember that token £1 which I moved to Schwab's UK bank account? It arrived back in our UK bank account yesterday, with a message saying something like "Transaction bounced". I guess something went wrong somewhere so I'll chalk this one up as 'one of those things' and have another go (perhaps). Perhaps with £100 this time, which is hopefully enough not to get lost.
Thanks for your help.