Dividend Reinvestment

[JamesJone]

Dear IG, 

When will dividend reinvestment be available on share dealing and ISA accounts? This is such a key and fundamental part of long term investing! To not have this feature is very poor and is pushing me towards a different provider. I really rate IG as a whole but to not have DRIP is pretty much a deal breaker when deciding where to conduct my long term investing.

 

Regards, James

[JCMontgomery]

I agree, sadly if it's not in place by the end of the year I may have to change providers..

[LLD]

I agree. I asked IG this question about a year ago and they said they were 'working on it'. 

[MarkJohnSparrow]

I agree - I'll close my account shortly 

[theshidoshi]

IG keeps closing topics after it bored customers with "we value your feedback, we are forwarding it to the dev team, please standby for updates"

 

See this example

https://community.ig.com/forums/topic/1903-dividend-reinvestment-plan/?page=2

 

They are stringing everyone along and being vague with their product roadmap. 

 

I truly regret moving away from TD/II. The only thing that was going for IG was the lower commission rate. I did, however, lose out on many fronts such as :

 

- lack of DRIP

- Lack of automatic investment into my ISA unless (and I got eventually forced into it) you have a SMART portfolio

- Bad and basic UI which is not as intuitive as the competitors

- Lack of dashboard/reporting unless you have a Smart portfolio and even then that one is basic and ugly.

 

I missed out on 2 years of DRIP since I joined IG and I am now losing hope and beginning the process of finding a better alternative. I am willing to pay a little more commission (I don't trade often) in favour of having all the useful and necessary features in a self-respecting Trading platform.

 

When I mentioned what IG is missing and the lack of the DRIP or decent dashboard, my friends laugh really hard at me and ask why am I still there....

 

 

[PandaFace]

That thread you link to explictly states the reason for closing it and suggested that people open a new thread with a new request to continue the discussion... 

I’m all for DRP functionality but I’d probably draw the line at moaning for the sake of it.

[trade247]

I've hardened my stance on this. DRIP needs to be sorted...

[theshidoshi]

On 23/10/2018 at 08:42, PandaFace said:

That thread you link to explictly states the reason for closing it and suggested that people open a new thread with a new request to continue the discussion... 

I’m all for DRP functionality but I’d probably draw the line at moaning for the sake of it.

That is how you would like to interpret my message. Free society. I won't try to make you change your hasty judgement about my message being baseless moan.

 

I have every right as a user of IG to voice my frustrations. That is AFTER I have reached out to them directly by phone and email to ask for their commitment to improve their product and remain competitive. And of course you wouldn't know that I went into great length to have a friendly chat with IG and provide my feedback as a new investor who migrated from II two years ago. They said they took my feedback and on board and passed it on to their  Product teams.

 

Now, I have every right to demand an update and to be frustrated when nothing is heard back other than the same tired updates for 2 years. I much prefer a conservative but honest feedback saying no time line, could take years. This helps me decide to stay or leave..

 

When you keep saying, it is happening in months or by end of year or by Xmas, then it is creating false hope and ensuring we foolishly decide to stick it out a bit longer.

 

So please spare me your harsh, hasty and baseless judgment. I have done my fair bit of raising opportunities for improvement as a new comer behind the scenes and If I want to moan now after 2 years while deliberating and deciding what to do, then so be it.  So far I only have a counter moan from you and you have nothing useful to add.

 

For your info, I actually bothered to list the problems in my thread for the benefit of IG Staff in case they want to know what is lacking. It is not all moan.

 

Keep your judgement to yourself if you have nothing better to add.

 

 

[theshidoshi]

Back to the topic at hand..

 

I am doing my research now. I am interested to hear what your top 3 alternatives are and the features that made you or are making you want to leave IG? (perhaps I should move this to a new thread but keen to hear from the leavers due to DRIP )

 

II (formerly TD) is my main contender as I have been with them before

Most important features to me:

- DRIP (obviously)

- Better reporting  dashboard / analytics into my portfolio (better UI too)

- Monthly regular (auto) investment into my ISA portfolio (no, not smart or managed portfolio but shares bought equally into few stocks of my choosing)

- Easier way for setting Stop losses or Take profit points (not the fiddly way I do it here. I covered this in a separate thread)

Cheers

Edited October 24, 2018 by theshidoshi

[Caseynotes]

Hi @theshidoshi, I would not be surprised if the DRIP, better dashboard and UI, along with the easier orders placement are all rolled out at the same time when the shares platform is updated to the new HTML5 format.

All this was planned before the esma new regs bombshell which stopped all other development work. That work is continuing now as shown by the recent migration of Options trading onto the new platform. 

The development work must  be completed soon as the old platforms use Adobe Flash which will be retired shortly anyway. 

I can understand the frustration at not being given a time frame but can also understand the problem of supplying one when regulators make sudden changes and give such a short period of time for them to be implemented.

[theshidoshi]

Hi @Caseynotes

Thanks for your reply. I totally understand what you're saying.  It is really frustrating

 

IG is a large provider and much smaller competitors managed to comply with regulations and continue to develop and add features. 

Can we really afford to stay a few years longer with lost opportunities to reinvest and use the power of compounding?

I am sure you can calculate what your gain would have been over the years I have been with IG if my ISA portfolio was compounding rather than pay me out the dividends of those companies.

They need to give us a decisive answer so we can make a  decision to stay or go. If they say a by this or that quarter, great, we may stay. if they are unsure and it actually takes a few more years, then I will take the money elsewhere.

How can they not know when they plan to release something? At least tell us some promising news like (here is the beta site in non-production so you can almost smell what is coming, hang in there).

That I would believe. Not the fairy and vague comments they made in the forum for the past few years.

 

Thanks for putting up with my post. I am sure I am voicing the frustrations of many, not just mine.

[Caseynotes]

No problem @theshidoshi,  can perfectly well understand the frustration and you are correct that many share the same and have voiced it here on the forum on many occasions.

Because of that I am fairly certain that the DRP addition is a major priority and that is a good point you raise, I remember thinking when originally replying to your post 'how could you estimate how long it would take to test and debug a new product', but as you say, just to know it was even in testing would be something.

Announcement of new products is not one of IG's strong points and it's not unusual for new products to just appear on the platform to be 'discovered' by users, the arrival of the KO options was one such. Certainly something IG could work on.

 

[Troobs]

Delving into my own research into IG and DRP. This is the latest active thread that I have read and it seems every post, over the months and years gone by, a straight answer is dodged every time.

"...I am fairly certain that DRP addition is a major priority..."? If it was a major priority would you not be certain? Would IG not provide details?

I have only just started my investment portfolio, so I am not that much money in yet. But if IG can not provide a straight, clear cut answer on DRP development and its rollout, I'll take me money elsewhere before I am so many commissions in without the prospect of a compounding portfolio.

Can IG provide a STRAIGHT ANSWER?

Is it working on DRP? Yes or No?

Will it be rolled out this financial year? Yes or No?

[CBez]

@JamesIG Is there any way we could get an answer on this?  It looks like the conversation was started 18 months ago and is yet to be resolved.  I think I will be moving like so many others if it is not sorted in the near future. 

[theshidoshi]

On 01/12/2018 at 18:39, CBez said:

@JamesIG Is there any way we could get an answer on this?  It looks like the conversation was started 18 months ago and is yet to be resolved.  I think I will be moving like so many others if it is not sorted in the near future. 

IG refused to answer this question in many posts and I have also called them. After Xmas I will be taking my ISA investments elsewhere. I have phoned a few competitors and they have both features that IG is lacking, DRIP and ultra-low cost automatic investing within my ISA (stocks or ETFs).

 

This really makes a huge difference in terms of lost opportunities and compounding. 

[Guest Rodrigo]

IG WHERE IS THE DIVIDENDS DRIP program that is such a deal breaker. Could you please sort this out or I’m to change my money to other broker 

[CharlotteIG]

 

On 18/11/2019 at 19:58, Guest Rodrigo said:

IG WHERE IS THE DIVIDENDS DRIP program that is such a deal breaker. Could you please sort this out or I’m to change my money to other broker 

Hey,

I will be contacting our corporate actions team about who can push this. I think it's a great idea that a lot of clients want. I will update on this stream. 

Apologies for the delay in this project. 

Thanks

[Guest Danny M]

On 20/11/2019 at 14:07, CharlotteIG said:

 

Hey,

I will be contacting our corporate actions team about who can push this. I think it's a great idea that a lot of clients want. I will update on this stream. 

Apologies for the delay in this project. 

Thanks

HI @CharlotteIG,

This topic keeps getting brought up time and time again, but the customers have still not had a response as to whether it will ever be implemented in the future.

I'm sure that this is a real deal breaker for many existing and new investors a like.

An update on the progress of the project would be appreciated by all that are following this topic.

Regards,

[Jchcool]

It's 2020 and we're still waiting. What a joke 😂

[Sartois]

Hi,

 Is it still the case that there's no (cheap) automatic dividend reinvestment? I've opened a dealing account with IG and was thinking of bringing my ISA across, but this is problematic...

Thanks,

Sartois

[MSP1]

Any update on this? @CharlotteIG