Saxo Bank inactivity fee

skydome

Got notification today that Saxo are going to charge an inactivity fee of £25 per quarter if no trade goes through in the quarter.

Moved to Saxo to avoid inactivity fees from a previous broker, but it looks unavoidable now. £25 isn't so bad I suppose, and I really like the platform and have always had very good customer service with them.

Wondering if this is making any other Saxo users reconsider their broker choice, and if so, what are the contenders folk are considering.

AntiRip

skydome wrote: »

Got notification today that Saxo are going to charge an inactivity fee of £25 per quarter if no trade goes through in the quarter.

Moved to Saxo to avoid inactivity fees from a previous broker, but it looks unavoidable now. £25 isn't so bad I suppose, and I really like the platform and have always had very good customer service with them.

Wondering if this is making any other Saxo users reconsider their broker choice, and if so, what are the contenders folk are considering.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=86812673&postcount=128

There was a discussion here a few months ago about the exact same thing. People went to SAXO to avoid fees with FXCM. I'm signing up with tdwaterhouse.ie. Seems to be no inactivity fees >E5000.

Mort5000

AntiRip wrote: »

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=86812673&postcount=128

There was a discussion here a few months ago about the exact same thing. People went to SAXO to avoid fees with FXCM. I'm signing up with tdwaterhouse.ie. Seems to be no inactivity fees >E5000.

Good luck:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056844033

AntiRip

Mort5000 wrote: »

Good luck:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056844033

Do you think it would be better just to get my shares cert off Saxo? I have 15000 shares worth around €6000. I don't trade. Just want to keep the shares for a couple years before selling them without encouring any inactivity fees.

soirish

Saxo seems to be perfect for traders as they would never experienced inactivity fee. As a long-term investor 120 eur/year is too steep for me and will be looking elsewhere.

Thargor

Post if you find somewhere decent for parking shares long term but still has the option of quick buys and sells please Soirish or anyone else.

banie01

Is this inactivity fee only for accounts below a certain value? Similar to TD's account fee, in that it is waived if your account value is above a certain value?

I'm asking as I moved to Saxo in June/July and was assured there would not be an account maintenance fee and nor have I received any comms from Saxo regarding such a fee being introduced.

EDIT:Just reading the fee structure now.
I'm surprised I didn't get a mail from Saxo re: this!
And I've combed my spam filter too just to be sure!

Mort5000

Email was sent on the 1st Oct.
PM if you want me to forward on to you Banie.

Account value is not taken into consideration:

"
If you have not placed a trade during a calendar quarter we will debit £25 from your account at the beginning of the following quarter
"

gOst

In light of the above has anyone found an alternative broker with lower or no inactivity fees?

AntiRip

gOst wrote: »

In light of the above has anyone found an alternative broker with lower or no inactivity fees?

Unfortunately not. I sent out forms to TDWaterhouse a couple weeks ago and haven't heard from them since.

Dubh Geannain

AntiRip wrote: »

Unfortunately not. I sent out forms to TDWaterhouse a couple weeks ago and haven't heard from them since.

I'm with them over two years now. The one issue I had was when I sent a share cert to their freepost Dublin address, it went missing. (They have a PO Box. but no physical address in Ireland). It turned up in their offices about a month later with stamps from all over the UK on the envelope.

If your sending anything to them I'd recommend not using the Dublin address, pay the little bit of postage (registered is best) and send it straight to the UK address.

Apart from that I have had no real problems with them, although some people have and have (see other thread). In a nut shell, their technical support for Irish customers is pretty poor.

Wolf07

I am finding it so difficult to find an affordable broker that doesn't have crazy fees or crappy customer service.

I was going to open with davy until I saw ridiculous fee structure.

Saxo looked good until the started charging in activity fees etc and I finally decided that TD for someone with my starting capital (<5k) would be the best until I read some of the horror stories by some of these guys.
--touch.boards[dot][ie]/thread/2056844033/9--

Interactive brokers looked brilliant except you needed 10k dollars to open with them.

I thought then that maybe spread betting was the way to go but although all the marketing around it and some people telling me spread betting is OK I just feel it's not for me especially just starting out.

Can someone point me in the right direction?

Evergreen

Wolf07 wrote: »

I am finding it so difficult to find an affordable broker that doesn't have crazy fees or crappy customer service.

I was going to open with davy until I saw ridiculous fee structure.

Saxo looked good until the started charging in activity fees etc and I finally decided that TD for someone with my starting capital (<5k) would be the best until I read some of the horror stories by some of these guys.
--touch.boards[dot][ie]/thread/2056844033/9--

Interactive brokers looked brilliant except you needed 10k dollars to open with them.

I thought then that maybe spread betting was the way to go but although all the marketing around it and some people telling me spread betting is OK I just feel it's not for me especially just starting out.

Can someone point me in the right direction?

At EUR 25.00 per Q Saxo bank is not so bad. What you could do to overcome this is pick a reliable stock, invest a couple of hundred euro in it and trade it once per quarter. You will have a trading fee, but if you can subtract this amount from the total cost of the trade then place the order based on this price and leave it. When the stock price cycles down to that level your account will buy the stock for you. So if you sell in one quarter and buy in the next you can negate the inactivity fees for very small effort.

Hope this helps/makes sense?

Mort5000

Trading a couple of hundred per quarter will have you on a losing streak pretty quickly.
You'd need larger amounts to offset the cost of the trade.

MaxPower131

So I bought some shares a couple of few years ago and have no intention of buying/selling for the next couple of years. Shares are valued about 5k so owning to the inactivity fee I decided to close my Saxo Account and get my share certs. However I receive this response from Saxo:

[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial]Unfortunately it is not possible to rematerialise your shares in to certificated format. As such you will need to either transfer to another broker, or close your positions and withdraw the proceeds in order to close your account.[/FONT]

The cost to transfer to another broker is 50 EUR per line of stock, with a maximum overall charge of 160 EUR.

Can anyone explain why I can't rematerialise the shares to certificated format?
Has anyone found anybrokers than don't charge an inactivity fee?

Blacktie.

MaxPower131 wrote: »

So I bought some shares a couple of few years ago and have no intention of buying/selling for the next couple of years. Shares are valued about 5k so owning to the inactivity fee I decided to close my Saxo Account and get my share certs. However I receive this response from Saxo:

[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial]Unfortunately it is not possible to rematerialise your shares in to certificated format. As such you will need to either transfer to another broker, or close your positions and withdraw the proceeds in order to close your account.[/FONT]

The cost to transfer to another broker is 50 EUR per line of stock, with a maximum overall charge of 160 EUR.

Can anyone explain why I can't rematerialise the shares to certificated format?
Has anyone found anybrokers than don't charge an inactivity fee?

I'm not too knowledgeable in all this yet but I believe td waterhouse don't charge inactivity fees if you have over E5000 with them.

MaxPower131

MaxPower131 wrote: »

So I bought some shares a couple of few years ago and have no intention of buying/selling for the next couple of years. Shares are valued about 5k so owning to the inactivity fee I decided to close my Saxo Account and get my share certs. However I receive this response from Saxo:

[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial]Unfortunately it is not possible to rematerialise your shares in to certificated format. As such you will need to either transfer to another broker, or close your positions and withdraw the proceeds in order to close your account.[/FONT]

The cost to transfer to another broker is 50 EUR per line of stock, with a maximum overall charge of 160 EUR.

Can anyone explain why I can't rematerialise the shares to certificated format?
Has anyone found anybrokers than don't charge an inactivity fee?

Bump......can anyone explain why I can't get my sharecerts back in paperform?

Thargor

Surely Saxo are the ones that will answer that?

Bizness

MaxPower131 wrote: »

So I bought some shares a couple of few years ago and have no intention of buying/selling for the next couple of years. Shares are valued about 5k so owning to the inactivity fee I decided to close my Saxo Account and get my share certs. However I receive this response from Saxo:

[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial]Unfortunately it is not possible to rematerialise your shares in to certificated format. As such you will need to either transfer to another broker, or close your positions and withdraw the proceeds in order to close your account.[/FONT]

The cost to transfer to another broker is 50 EUR per line of stock, with a maximum overall charge of 160 EUR.

Can anyone explain why I can't rematerialise the shares to certificated format?
Has anyone found anybrokers than don't charge an inactivity fee?

If the stock is for a company with their primary listing on the Irish or London stock exchange, then you will be able to get the paper share cert. If US, European, rest of world then it may be more difficult, as some companies have stopped issuing paper certs, and you are also, I assume, not resident in that country.
If your holdings are Irish/UK stocks, then Saxo obviously don't want to facilitate the transfer to paper certs as they will lose out on the yearly account fees/inactivity fees as you would most likely close your account. Not sure if they are obliged to do it.

I am assuming you hold Irish/UK registered stock (if you hold rest of world stocks, then you will need to find out if the company issues paper share certs to non-residents).

First port of call is probably the investor relations team (on the company web-site, under 'Investors' tab) of the company in which you hold the stock, to see if the transfer out to paper cert can be done via their registrars. They may tell you to just contact the registrars. The registrars are also listed under the 'Investors' tab on the web-site also. Registrars would be the likes of Equiniti, Capita, Computershare. The registrars are the ones who issue the paper certs.

Find out about the cost, because if the registrars do the transfer, they will charge a fee, and they are not the cheapest.

I suspect that in the end, you may have to set up a stockbroking account with another broker, to get your holdings in paper cert form. If this is the case, then Campbell O'Connor, based in Dublin is your best bet in my opinion. There is no yearly account fee for an execution only account and no inactivity fee, so if you are not intending to trade some years, then it is the most cost-effective. If you want to hold your shares electronically, like in a Crest account, then there is a yearly charge as the Crest account has to be administered by a third party. Cost is €50 per annum or used to be anyhow.

For the paper cert option, set up your account with Campbell's (form of i.d., proof of address etc), get your account number and broker i.d. off them and then instruct Saxo to transfer out your holding to that account and broker. Saxo will charge you the rip-off transfer out fee, but there is not much you can do about it I suspect, you could always complain about it I guess and see if they reduce it. Instruct Campbell that you want the holding issued in paper cert form, and 4-6 weeks later, you should get the paper cert in the post. Campbell will charge an admin fee to do this, about €20 per holding. Keep the paper cert in a safe place, as there is a replacement cost if lost/stolen. With the share cert, you are not tied to any broker, so you could in theory sell via another broker, or the company registrar.

You could also look at other brokers, e.g. TD Waterhouse - they have an office in Cork, or Fexco etc, but I suspect that they may have yearly account charges.

Hope that helps.

MaxPower131

Thanks Bizness, some great information there.

BrokenArrows

Regarding the inactivity fee. Its fairly simple to get around.

They state they cannot reduce your account below zero so just remove any cash you have in your account and you can leave your shares in place.


http://uk.saxomarkets.com/support/faq/trading/

Does Saxo Capital Markets charge fees for their trading platforms?

An inactivity fee will come into effect as from 1 November 2013.

If you have not placed a trade during a calendar quarter we will debit £25 from your account at the beginning of the following quarter.


The fee will be charged on a calendar quarter basis with effect from Q1 2014. For the remaining months of this year we will be charging the fee in January 2014 to those clients who have not traded in November and December 2013.

Please note that the inactivity fee cannot reduce your account balance below zero.

SIPP and ISA accounts are excluded and will not be charged an Inactivity fee.

Mort5000

BrokenArrows wrote: »

Regarding the inactivity fee. Its fairly simple to get around.

They state they cannot reduce your account below zero so just remove any cash you have in your account and you can leave your shares in place.


http://uk.saxomarkets.com/support/faq/trading/

Serious answers only please!

BrokenArrows

Mort5000 wrote: »

Serious answers only please!

I was being serious!

Mort5000

BrokenArrows wrote: »

I was being serious!

Oh, heh, I can't imagine zero balance is a valid way to get around paying services charges that are due.
Otherwise my tax, electricity, water(!!), and every other account would be reduced to 0 to avoid paying.

I expect they'd just accumulate and remove the amount due from the next share sale / dividend distribution.

Bizness

MaxPower131 wrote: »

So I bought some shares a couple of few years ago and have no intention of buying/selling for the next couple of years. Shares are valued about 5k so owning to the inactivity fee I decided to close my Saxo Account and get my share certs. However I receive this response from Saxo:

[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial]Unfortunately it is not possible to rematerialise your shares in to certificated format. As such you will need to either transfer to another broker, or close your positions and withdraw the proceeds in order to close your account.[/FONT]

The cost to transfer to another broker is 50 EUR per line of stock, with a maximum overall charge of 160 EUR.

Can anyone explain why I can't rematerialise the shares to certificated format?
Has anyone found anybrokers than don't charge an inactivity fee?

MaxPower131 wrote: »

Thanks Bizness, some great information there.

No problem.
I'd be going back to Saxo to see if they can facilitate the transfer out to share cert first considering that they already want to charge you for a electronic transfer out. I don't know why they can't facilitate this, apart from obviously losing your account.

Forgot to say to make sure you keep receipts for all costs, incl initial share purchase cost, stamp duty cost, yearly account & inactivity fees, transfer out fees etc as you will be able to offset this against any any capital gains so as to reduce your capital gains tax whenever you sell the shares. In the unfortunate event of a capital loss on a share sale, then add the costs to the loss, and the loss can be carried forward against a future capital gain.
You may already know this, but just in case.

Cyclonius

I got this email from Saxo the other day:

IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Saxo Capital Markets introduces custody fee from 1st January 2015

On 1st January 2015, Saxo Capital Markets will be introducing a new custody fee on stock and ETF/ETC positions. A fee of 0.12% p.a. will be charged on your account, with a minimum monthly fee of EUR 5 (or your account currency equivalent).

Please note that with respect to bonds, the existing custody fee will change to 0.12%, which is an increase for most currency denominations, and the method of calculation will change to fall in line with stocks and ETFs/ETCs.

The fees will be calculated daily, but debited from your cash balance on a monthly basis.
Product held Custody fee per annum Monthly minimum fee
Stocks,
ETFs/ETCs and Bonds 0.12% EUR 5 (or your account currency equivalent)

For more information on how these fees are calculated, please click here.

---

Can't say I'm too impressed with this. It doesn't mention the inactivity fee being scrapped either, so both will likely run in conjunction with each other. Looks like it's time to consider moving.

Mort5000

Cyclonius wrote: »

Looks like it's time to consider moving.

If you do find someone cheaper, with better customer service and trading platform, please do post details here!

euroboom13

For some NWO strange reason they are doing away with papershare`s ,so any shares bought or sold must be change to electronic form and held by a brokerage.

Our liberty is being eroded every day.

There was a time you could lodge them in the bank and borrow against them like property.Good luck

Mort5000

euroboom13 wrote: »

For some NWO strange reason they are doing away with papershare`s ,so any shares bought or sold must be change to electronic form and held by a brokerage.

Our liberty is being eroded every day.

There was a time you could lodge them in the bank and borrow against them like property.Good luck

I think you may need to recharge your tinfoil hat.

euroboom13

Mort5000 wrote: »

I think you may need to recharge your tinfoil hat.

Your humour is lost on me?

I may have come across ,as a world hater(which I am not), but only expressing my annoyance ,at compliant acceptance of unnecessary change, shares are losing there place, as deeded property.

I have been buying shares for years and only in the past two years has my way of trading been completely removed.I have been force to hand over my property to a third party to hold on my behalf. It isn't just! and makes no sense and that third party can borrow against my property and I no longer can!!!

If you don`t see the crime in that ,you are missing an important tool in wealth creation.

Yours, tinfoil head.

whytisme

Bumping the thread from 2014, and I have information to add.

With Saxo Bank UK you have two choices:

1. Accept the inactivity fee (£25/quarter = €33 at time of writing)
2. Trade quarterly (€12 trading fee/quarter if EU stock)

Over ten years, option (1.) would cost you €1,320. Option (2.) would cost you €480, plus a drain on your cash flow.

So the cheaper option, but the one that takes more cash, is to trade quarterly.

I don't agree with the statement that you're on a loosing game by doing that. You'd actually be doing euro-cost averaging, so reducing your risk in one way.

€840 every ten years is a significant amount, so it's worth considering trading quarterly if you can find the cash. Their minimum trade is €100 (or perhaps that depends on the stock exchange you're placing your order on, I don't know).

What do others think?