Transferring your Investments

If you’ve got investments held elsewhere, why not transfer them to Smart Investor? Having everything in one place not only helps you take back control but you’ll also benefit from the features offered by Smart Investor. These include transparent fees, access to our Ready-made Investments, Barclays Funds List and Barclays Price Improver™.

Remember too that if you’re transferring cash after selling an investment you will be “out of the market” for a period of time. When markets are volatile, this can mean you miss out on large movements in value, both up and down.

Four steps to transfer

Once you’ve opened either a Barclays Investment ISA, Investment Account or SIPP, you can move your investments across in just four simple steps:

The value of investments can fall as well as rise. You may get back less than you invest. Tax rules can change and their effects on you will depend on your individual circumstances.

Why invest with Barclays?

Invest via the Barclays app – if you have a Barclays current account you can see your investments, along with all the other products you have with us, in your online banking account and the Barclays app. You can also now buy and sell investments via the app too. If your current account is with another provider, you won’t have access to the app, but can still manage everything online.

Invest in our Ready-made Investments – if you’re not sure where to invest or are short on time, we offer five Ready-made Investments that could help get you started. They invest in shares, bonds and cash to help spread risk but are all slightly different. You just need to read about the characteristics of each fund and choose the one that sounds most like you.

Access thousands of other investment opportunities, covering funds, shares, gilts and bonds, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), Investment Trusts and new issues if you want to build your own investment portfolio.

Get help narrowing down the search – some people find the amount of choice quite daunting so to help narrow it down we have the Barclays Funds List. This is a list of about 40 funds our experts have analysed and believe offer good long-term investment prospects.

We go the extra mile to get you the best price – if you want to invest in shares, Exchange Traded Funds, investment trusts or Retail Estate Investment Trusts, you’ll benefit from Barclays Price Improver™. Every time you buy or sell, we’ll give you the best price available from our selected Retail Service Providers (RSPs). With Barclays Price Improver™, 94.08% of trades placed between January 2021 and December 2021 got a better price than the quoted price on the London Stock Exchange.

Take advantage of resources you can rely on. We don’t give personalised advice, but our Research Centre, articles, videos and podcasts can help with your investment decisions.

Before you transfer

Find out about any charges, exit penalties, benefits you may lose or investments that you can’t transfer to us.

If you transfer cash or investments from a Lifetime ISA to an Investment ISA, it will count as a Lifetime ISA withdrawal and you will incur the 20% government charge on the amount transferred. This charge was reduced from its normal rate of 25% by the Government in 2020 to help people access cash more freely during the pandemic. It is due to revert to 25% in April.

If you’re transferring cash after selling your investments and maybe planning to repurchase them, remember you’ll be ‘out of the market’ for a time and there’ll be charges when you sell and reinvest.

You may also have to pay capital gains tax when you sell if your investments aren’t held in an ISA. That means you’ll miss out on any rise in value and on any income from these investments during that period. You’ll also miss out on any corporate actions such as rights issues and on voting rights as well as any Shareholders’ benefits, for example, discounts on services, which you may not receive on the same terms when you repurchase the shares.

There will be dealing charges to sell and repurchase investments. If you make capital gains outside of pensions or ISAs that exceed your annual allowances, you’ll need to pay capital gains tax. Remember, tax rules can and do change, and their effects on you will depend on your individual circumstances, which can also change.
During the transfer process, you won’t be able to sell any existing investments. However, once the process is complete, you’ll be able to sell as normal. There will be a period during the transfer when you won’t be able to sell existing investment holdings. How long this period lasts will depend on the assets you hold, but it may also be affected by how quickly the registrar or fund manager carries out the ownership transfer and whether they’ll accept an order to sell while making the transfer.

There may also be delays in receiving dividends, other income and information, as well as delays to exercising shareholder concessions or receiving notification of voting rights or corporate actions, such as rights issues. These could affect your ability to respond where deadlines are shorter.
There are some additional elements to consider when transferring pensions. Transferring a pension doesn’t affect its tax-efficient status, but you should make sure that you don’t have to pay penalties or give up valuable benefits – and that you're aware of all the risks and drawbacks involved in this. We don’t accept transfers of defined benefit pensions (e.g. final or average salary pensions). If you’re unsure whether to transfer a pension, seek professional independent advice. (Pensions are not included in the cashback offer).

Read an explanation of drawbacks and risks to be aware of when transferring pensions [PDF, 1.7MB].

Transferring your Investments

Four steps to transfer

1. Select provider

2. Select investments

3. Review

4. Confirm

Why invest with Barclays?

Before you transfer

Transfer to our Investment ISA

Transfer to our Investment Account

Transfer to a Barclays SIPP

Bed and ISA

Lodge paper shares electronically

Plan & Invest

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