Self-Investor support

You should check with your current provider if you will be charged for transferring your ISA.

If you wish to transfer part of an ISA from another provider please call our transfer team on 0800 1522 522. Your investments can be re-registered in an ISA with us as long as we offer the same funds in the same share class, and your existing ISA plan manager supports this. If not, your existing ISA plan manager will sell the investments and transfer as cash. The minimum amount you can transfer to us is £500, with further transfers requiring a minimum of £100. You must already have a Self Investor ISA to be able to transfer another ISA in.

If you transfer as cash you'll be out of the market until the transfer is complete. You won't lose out if the market falls but your money won't be subject to any potential income or growth if the markets rise in this period.

You can re-register investments from General Investments Accounts, Trading Accounts, Fund Trading and Dealing accounts into our Trading Account as long as we offer the same funds in the same share class, and your existing provider supports this.

If you re-register at least one fund to our Trading Account, you can also transfer any other funds you hold that aren't available from Self Investor as cash.

The minimum amount you can transfer to us if £500, with further transfers requiring a minimum of £100.

If you transfer as cash you'll be out of the market until the transfer is complete. You won't lose out if the market but your money won't be subject to any potential income or growth if the market rises in this period. Once the transfer is complete you'll need to choose your funds to invest in.

If you're transferring funds you'll remain invested during the transfer. You'll be unable to switch or sell these funds while the market falls or rises during this time. You must already have a Self Investor Trading Account to be able to transfer other investments in.

First decide whether you want to transfer to our Stocks and Shares ISA or Trading Account, then read our Self Investor: In specie guide to transfers which provides you with further information on our transfer processes. Then call us on 0800 1522 522 and let one of our dedicated team help you get started with your online transfer. Or if you prefer you can set it up yourself online by following the steps below:

If you transfer as cash you'll be out of the market until the transfer is complete. You won't lose out f the market falls but your money won't be subject to any potential income or growth if the market rises in this period. If you're transferring funds you'll remain invested during the transfer. You'll be unable to switch or sell these funds while the market falls or rises during this time.

• the account charge (the cost of the services we provide you)
• the total fund charge (which you pay to invest in a specific fund)

Fund charges vary depending on what you choose to invest in.

Our Smart+ account charges

Interest rates

Each Self Investor customer automatically has access to a Smart+ Cash account. In addition, you may have cash balances held within the Smart+ Stocks and Shares Individual Savings Account (ISA) and the Trading Account.

The annual gross interest rate we pay you on the ISA and Trading Account cash balances is calculated with reference to the Bank of England base rate. This means that you can always work out what the interest rate paid will be, using the table below (paid rates are rounded up to the nearest 0.01%). Please note these rates will be changing in the coming weeks. See below for details. 

For example, under the base rate announced on 7th November 2024 of 4.75%, the rate we pay to customers on wrapper cash accounts is 2.58% per annum. This is calculated as 0% of the first 0.50%, plus 30% of the next 0.50%, plus 50% of the next 1.00%, plus 70% of the next 2.75%; i.e. 0.00% + 0.15% + 0.50% + 1.93% = 2.58%.

Interest is calculated daily and will be paid into your ISA or Trading Account on the last working day of each month. If the base rate is negative this table will not apply, and paid rates may become negative. When the Bank of England base rate changes, the rate we pay you will be updated within five working days.

If you or your client holds £50,000 in cash in various products, they will have received the interest below over the course of 2023:

*across Self Investor ISA Stocks & Shares or Trading Account.

Retained rates of interest

The rate we earn from our banking partner(s) may be higher or lower than base rate, and may vary daily. We retain any additional interest earned, which is taken directly from the interest received from the banks(s), so will not appear as a separate charge.

Other interest

No interest is paid on cash in your Smart+ Cash account. We use investment and administration accounts when money is being paid in to and taken out of accounts held with us including when investment funds are bought and sold and when investment income is paid from a fund. No interest is paid on money in these accounts.

To view the funds, log in to your account and click the Research and Planning tab. Then select Full fund from 'Choose investments'. You can then filter the list of funds, select funds for investment and add funds to your watchlist.

We recently contacted self-investor customers about the changes we are making to simplify the charges we apply for holding cash in your Smart+ accounts. How these changes affect your cash charges will depend on how much cash you currently have in your Self Investor Smart+ account.

Costs for our Smart+ service and cash management activity in respect of cash holdings in your Smart+ accounts were covered through the Smart+ Account Charge and through the amount we retain on interest.

We will now only have one charge in respect of cash holdings in your Smart+ accounts, applied through the interest we retain.

The Smart+ Account Charge will no longer apply to cash within your Smart+ accounts. The charge will still apply to your other investments but the amount used to determine the applicable rate will no longer include cash.

As we will now retain interest to cover both cash management costs and our Smart+ service, the interest rates paid on cash balances will be reduced. The new paid rates are shown in the table below.

 

The rates will continue to be calculated with reference to the Bank of England base rate and we’ll continue to publish the latest paid rates on this webpage so you can easily view how much interest you are earning on your cash holdings. We’ve provided an example below to help illustrate how this may look in practice.

Example Smart+ ISA scenario:

If you are a customer with £30k in an ISA, of which £1.5k of this is in product cash, your charges and interest will change as follows.

The Smart+ Account Charge on the ISA will reduce from £105 to £99.75 per annum, as the charge no longer includes the portion of cash in your ISA.

Interest received on the cash in your ISA will decrease from £38.70 to £35.70** per annum.

Based on the above, you will be £2.25 better off per annum.

Based on a flat charge of 0.35% for accounts up to £200k, and 0.20% for accounts above £200k.

**Based on a base rate of 4.75%

Example paid rates

To help you understand how we calculate the paid interest rate in practice, we have provided some worked examples based on our changes and the new paid rates, in the table below.

We are updating your terms and conditions to reflect these changes. And we’ll let you know the exact date these terms become effective via this page.

Call Us

0800 1522 522
Monday to Friday: 9am - 5pm

Email us

If you've got a non-urgent query you can email us. Please remember email is not secure so don’t send personal details.

selfinvestoradmin@abrdn.com

(This mail box can only deal with inquiries about Self Investor – not any other accounts).