I've just received a letter from Transact (fund wrapper) that I no longer have a financial adviser and that they are going to increase their commissions dramatically. I've had no communication from my financial adviser to that effect.

Has something similar happened to anyone else recently? And can anyone explain why this might have happened?

I know there have been a lot of silly changes recently brought about by government meddling. Rather ludicrously, rebates from fund managers are now no longer credited as cash, but as investments in cash or gilt funds. Now to reinvest these I have to sell the investments, wait a few days, and then make a purchase. Could similar meddling be responsible for my losing my financial adviser?

I'm a bit perplexed.

I'm not that familiar with Transact AyG. The difference I see compared to the platforms I use is that they also target financial advisors at the same time as customers.

Did you have a financial advisor before or were you your own FA and just using the platform?

What I can say though is that since they brought in all these RDR rules there have been a lot of irritating changes such as you mention. I use Hargreaves Lansdown for their platform as well as linking to stockbroking great service, and being able to discount initial charges to zero and receive loyalty bonuses. I manage accounts for myself, brother and sister-in-law and mum. All the changes seem to just have created annoying extras to the time I spend on things, eg

-Instead of receiving a small loyalty bonus as a % of the annual management charge being rebated, I now get charged a fee (about 0.45%) to my income account, but get a higher loyalty bonus, but end up net net with the same or a bit better rebate. So instead of say 0.6% fee going to HL and them passing on 0.15%, I get 0.6% and pay a fee.

-Annoying that the fee comes out of my income account affecting divs I want to reinvest, instead of the capital account, so I have to mess around a bit. If not enough cash they will sell units of the largest fund etc.

- Fund managers are creating different classes of units for the same fund "inclusive" = old style and unbundled = "new style" with the main diff.

One by one they're just annoying little time wasters and inconveniences. I was quite happy as an educated investor before RDR. There are also a few teething problems sometimes, eg messes up performance histories and stats, as well as timing diffs between paying fees and receiving rebates

Likely that Transact are also going thru similar adjustments.

I'm just monitoring things to see how it goes and how HL deal with it. Not their fault and they seem to be doing their best to be fair but it ends up more work for me. If someone comes up with a simpler and cheaper option I'll consider it. But given 20+ years with HL I have some loyalty and prepared to give them a chance, and have already given feedback which they always accept constructively.

Cheers

Fletch

I use Transact and I've had no such communication from them.