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Cash interest explained |
You will receive interest on balances in your platform cash account at the prevailing rate.
Embark Investment Services Limited acts as the custodian for investments on the Willis Owen platform and is one of our strategic partners that provides our Willis Owen ISA, GIA, Junior ISA and SIPP.
Embark places cash with a number of banking partners for safekeeping and to provide the potential for you to earn interest on money in your platform cash account. By managing cash in this way, it aims to provide better protection and a higher overall level of interest than if all funds were placed with a single bank.
The rates of interest paid by banks will vary. Embark retains a portion of the interest earned to cover its costs in managing platform cash.
Current Interest Rate
The table below shows the current customer interest rate payable on cash balances along with the amount of interest retained by Embark. The customer interest rate shown is that after accounting for interest retained by Embark:
Date From | Customer Interest Rate | Interest retained by Embark |
---|---|---|
25th March 2024 | 2.46% | 1.75% - 2.00% |
Embark can change the rate of interest at any time and it reviews the position at least quarterly. Interest is calculated and accrued daily and is credited to your account on the first of each month. If you transfer out, accrued interest is applied at the point of transfer. We will inform you if and when the interest rate changes as soon as is practicable.
Interest retained
The table below shows the yearly equivalent rates of interest Embark expects to pay based on a range of possible yearly interest rates it may earn.
Interest Embark expects to earn | Customer Interest Rate | Interest retained by Embark |
---|---|---|
0-1% | 0 – 0.46% | 0 – 0.54% |
1-2% | 0.46% – 0.94% | 0.54% – 1.06% |
2-3% | 0.94% – 1.46% | 1.06% – 1.54% |
3-4% | 1.46% – 2.02% | 1.54% – 1.98% |
4-5% | 2.02% – 2.61% | 1.98% – 2.39% |
5%+ | 2.61%+ | 2.39%+ |
Historic Interest Rates
To see details of historic customer interest rates, along with the amount of interest retained by Embark, click here.
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Re-Registration of Assets (also known as an In Specie or Stock Transfer) is the process of transferring Funds or Shares to a different intermediary or platform without selling the underlying investment. Your holdings will be re-registered with the custodian of the new company you have chosen to administer your investments. Therefore, there will be a change of nominee account but you remain the beneficial owner of the assets. There’ll be a period during the transfer when you won’t be able to sell your existing investments.
You can transfer an ISA, JISA, GIA or a SIPP. The potential benefits of such a transfer include savings on trading costs and being able to remain invested in the market during the period of transfer. If your investments are held within a tax wrapper such as an ISA you retain these benefits. For investments held outside a tax wrapper there may be savings on capital gains tax with a Re-Registration of Assets as you will not crystallise a gain.
It is only possible to re-register a Fund if it is available on our platform in the same share class and transfer Shares if those held are offered. Otherwise the transfer will have to be in cash.
If the Funds or Shares you hold are not available on the receiving platform you will need to sell them and transfer the proceeds as a Cash Transfer while retaining your tax wrapper benefits.
Once the cash has been transferred you can buy alternative Funds or Shares from the selection available. You may even be able to purchase the same Fund but in a different share class. You will be out of the market for a period of time between selling and buying again. However, you do have control over the timing when you buy back into the market.
If you hold your investments directly with a Product Provider e.g. Jupiter, Invesco etc. then you may have 'Commission-included' Funds with all charges built into the Fund price. In this instance you would need to make a Cash Transfer.Consolidating all your investments onto one platform can make it easier to monitor and manage your holdings in one place. It allows you to have a single-account view of your entire Fund, Investment Trusts, ETFs and Share holdings, even those purchased elsewhere. This can mean less paperwork and just one user name and password to remember.
Whether you transfer by Re-Registration of stock or a Cash Transfer it is important to remember to contact your chosen new provider and use their transfer process as selling and reapplying for a new product can mean the loss of any tax wrapper status.
In many cases transferring from one platform to another can be "seamless" and the Fund and Platform industry are increasingly using technology to transfer without paper. This development can cut your transfer time down to a matter of days, rather than weeks, in a lot of cases. However, in reality it may still be a paper driven process. The length of time taken to transfer will also depend on whether it is a stock transfer or a cash transfer.
Cash transfers can take 2-3 weeks, in which time you will be out of the market for the duration of the transfer, until you purchase a new investment. During this period, your investments will be sold and await settlement. Dependant on the provider, a cheque may be raised and sent to us. We will bank the cheque and await clearance; once cleared your monies will be available to you for investment.
Stock transfers can take 4-6 weeks. As this is purely an administration change, you will not be out of the market at anytime, this is just platforms and providers exchanging data to amend their records.
There is no charge to transfer your investments to Willis Owen but there may be an exit charge, usually per line of stock, levied by the platform/provider you are transferring away from.
If you hold income units, you are likely to receive dividends from the underlying investment. Depending on timings, you may have investments being transferred pre and post ex-dividend dates. All dividends will be paid out to the platform/provider you hold your investments at the ex-dividend date. For this reason, you may end up with a dividend distribution to the platform you have just moved away from. Each plan manager will have their own way of dealing with these.