Charles Stanley have sent out a letter to all their customers who use Personal Crest accounts that in future they will be charged £504 per annum (inc. VAT). Although the company stopped offering the service to new customers some time ago, existing users have in some cases been paying nothing to be a Personal Crest member. They clearly want to get rid of all such users of their service, including those using the low-cost Chas Stanley Direct platform because £504 is not likely to be an economically justifiable fee for most people.
They claim in the letter that there is a gap between what they charge for the service and the effort and costs involved as a Crest sponsor. Is this really true though? Almost all stock market trades go through the Crest system whether you are in nominee account or Personal Crest account. So why should it cost more?
In reality they are probably just trying to “simplify and standardise their service to cut costs and improve the service to clients” as they recently announced. But there are major advantages to having a Personal Crest account. You are on the share register of the company so the shares are clearly owned by you unlike in a nominee account. In addition you get the dividends on the shares paid directly to you instead of it sitting in a broker’s account earning them interest rather than you. Clients would probably be willing to pay a reasonable fee for the service, but not £504.
The only saving part of the announcement is that they are offering a free transfer to another Crest sponsor free of charge. I imagine many people will take up that offer although there are not many alternatives. I suggest clients of Chas Stanley who are affected by this change also send in complaints about this change.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
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