Sharewatch change to ODL Securities

Perhaps I can add some light here. ODL Securities are a medium sized London-based broker and we (www.investrcentre.com) have had dealings with them since 2005. When we started the ILTB 1-day investment training seminar (as it was known then)we needed an online broker offering to highlight to seminar attendees and ODL ticked most of the boxes from an Irish investor's viewpoint.

they deal online in UK, Irish, US stocks and European stocks & options over the phone. The deal in investment companies and ETFs also, which means they pretty much cover what the majority of investors may need to access online.

they take Euro transfer and provide decent fx conversion spreads.

they offer telephone dealing services as well as online.

As with all stockbroking companies, ODL is required, by law, to keep your shares with an independent global custodian (UK & Irish shares are kept in crest). They are also required to keep cash balances with banks. Hence, the stockbroking industry, and ODL, is obliged to keep your assets safely away from their balance sheet - referred to as 'Security of Client Assets'.

In our 5 years of dealing with ODL there has been no major complaints (every busines will have some customer dis-satisfaction). ODL has a banner advert on our website and hundreds of Irish people who have attended our 1-day seminar have an account with them. I doubt if their are perfec but we have found the service more than satisfactory.
 
Got an email from ODL last Friday to explain that the transfer from Direct Sharedeal was taking longer tha first thought. They could not give a definite date when the transfer would take place. More non-performance by Sharewatch/Direct Sharedeal.
 
Rory Gillen said:
As with all stockbroking companies, ODL is required, by law, to keep your shares with an independent global custodian (UK & Irish shares are kept in crest).
Click to expand...

Rory - can you clarify please. Most people are under the impression that ODL hold shares for clients in a nominee account. Your comment in parenthesis seems to indicate that Irish shares are kept in Crest. Did you mean to imply this, are you certain that is correct??
 
sharewatch.com/odlqa.php
The above link from sharewatch seems to answer questions. Even though I am a sharewatch customer today 24th Aug is the 1st I heard about the changes when I rang to access account - on phone I was told they could only sell not buy and that the whole thing might last another 2 weeks -- unfortunately I am totally confused about the implications of the change -- Is it possible to get a pro and con of the situation
 
Does anyone know what happens if you just do nothing? Will they mail out share certificates and just leave it at that? I want out of sharewatch at this stage. They have been awful from day dot, and this is the last straw as far as I'm concerned.
 
Received E Mail from ODL today want me to exercise options
Do not feel I have to exercise their options
Feel Sharewatch are obliged to maintain a Crest account somewhere for me
or send me the Share Certificates at no cost to me
Have they indicated to anyone how we are obliged to exercise their options?
 
Calico
If you do nothing, they will exercise option 1 - transfer to ODL. I have opted out of Sharewatch, and have got my certs from them.

RedDevil
Sharewatch will not do it at no cost to you. They did, however, reduce their charge by 66.6% for me
 
has anyone tried to transfer funds to ODL?

They tell me that one cannot transfer via debit card unless one has a post code. As most places in ireland do not have these, there would appear to be a problem?

The 'old' sharewatch account in Cork is of no use.
 
Try IRE 123 as a postcode. May be an issue again,though, if it does not match the address on your debit card.
 
ODL transfer

Has anyone succeeded in opening an ODL account that works, with the correct amount of shares transferred from Direct Sharedeal? I have only just discovered from ODL that doing nothing is not an option, and you must go to the link on the Sharewatch page which allows you to apply for an ODL account (odlmarkets.com/resources/odl-securities-ltd-account-transfer-form.odl).
It appears that Direct Sharedeal still expect to be transferring into September.
Does anyone know if you can still deposit money through the old Ulster Bank Douglas account? It appears ODL want deposits by IBAN to HSBC.
 
problem now seems resolved and visa debit card will work from ireland. you cannot use the old Ulster bank douglas account at all. If all else fails, you can do IBAN transfer from your bank to theire, but it takes a few days and a detailed application form to be ompleted
 
Well i must admit i am finding dealing with ODL a far more pleasant experience than directsharedeal.

Its easy to fund your account if you do an iban bank transfer in euro. No charges here at all, and the money went through in about 2 days.

They also answer your emails!! and quickly! which is a great relief.

So far so good.
 
Must agree with Smiley - great email responses and even better, there's a live chat thingy where you can chat away to try to answer your query.
 
Hi All,

Received this evening a mail from ODL, the first contact since I transferred from Sharewatch a month ago(though I was in no panic tbh). I had an account with my brother in Sharewatch, the mail tonight is asking
ODL to offer services to you and to meet ODL’s customer identification requirements, please complete the applicable form depending on whether you are applying for an individual, corporate or trust account
I know I am not corporate, but our (my brother and I) joint account is it individual or trust

Thanks
Guzzler
 
The Odl log in platform seems to always be wrong with figures, does anyone else find this. Also it does not seem to be as simple as just buy and sell beside your shares and see the value in different currencys as it was with direct sharedeal platform. Opinion please thanks.
 
Tippstone...hi...i must admit i dont find those problems at all.

Are you coming from the perspective of a day trader?
 
kfpg said:
Rory - can you clarify please. Most people are under the impression that ODL hold shares for clients in a nominee account. Your comment in parenthesis seems to indicate that Irish shares are kept in Crest. Did you mean to imply this, are you certain that is correct??
Click to expand...

ODL hold shares for clients in a nominee account within Crest. (all Irish and Uk listed companies are held in someone's depot at Crest, with the exception of the small percentage of people who hold in physical form)

Im not 100% on the following but... I believe with the nominee acc, your holdings will be in the name of ODL securities on the actual share register, not your name. This is why all communication from the company such as those regarding dividends go direct to ODL instead of yourself.
As opposed to having 'your own crest account', as its often termed.. You dont actually have your own crest account. It will be ODL's depot where your securities are held, but on the share register, your name will be stated as the beneficial owner of the shares. This way, all communication from the company comes direct to your door.

So I think what it comes down to and what worries people, is who the beneficial owner is at the end of the day, say for example in the event that ODL were to go under. I'd prefer having my name on the share register :)

I'm open to correction on (all of) the above :)
 
Has anyone made a complaint to the Financial Regulator about this whole matter? Any results / problems solved?

I had an account with Sharewatch and opted to get shares in cert form which I received except for an ETF which they said could not be put in cert form so would have to be transferred to ODL. 8 weeks passed and nothing from sharewatch/ODL, just called Sharewatch now and they said call ODL. Very poor service from sharewatch, it seems they are abandoning their customers.
 
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