Easy Equities good or bad?

[Speedster]

Oooh, nice!
There's actually no risk involved in this if the way they've worded the contract is correct:

Is there any risk associated with lending out my holdings?

The main risk is that we are not able to return equivalent Whole Securities to you when the loan is terminated. To combat this risk, we provide you with Equity Collateral to the value of 115% of your Whole Securities and/or FWT Cash Collateral and we cede to you our rights under a Third Party Borrower Guarantee. This means that you are fully collateralised (ie covered) in the event that we are not able to return equivalent Whole Securities to you when the loan is terminated.

Whoever came up with this roll out needs to be fired. If they'd led with something highlighting the opportunity to earn additional income from your portfolio people would be singing its praises.

 

[Swa]

Exactly this. The fee that is being questioned is the issuer portfolio fee which is being shown as a line item on EE when divided distribution is done. EE doesn't take this, it's paid to the issuer of the fund. And that's the TER of the fund, it's just how it works

Clearly you missed their point zero. It's not EE that takes the fee.

You still dont get it. This dividend fee will be charged on any platform you use.

You still don't get the point. It's not paying the fee that's the issue. It's not having the option to pay it out of fund and being left with a potentially huge bill shock.

 

[Excalibur]

 

[Dylan_G]

I don't understand people being upset about it. Yes, if you didn't get the mail and read it, that's a concern, but otherwise if you don't like what they are doing, you can still opt out. And EE aren't the only brokers who do this sort of thing.

Not going after you @mr_norris, just summarizing what I've found today.

Reasons to be upset:

1. Changed Ts&Cs which affect the primary customer base, thereby changing their product without giving people the option to opt-in to this (automatic opt-in was applied)
   
2. Didn't inform users about the change (sent an email but not to all customers that will be affected)
   
3. Made it my problem that I now need to log a ticket to opt-out.
   
4. Weak responses to questions and queries on Twitter:
   
   
   Figure 1: "don't like it then f*** off. Also, here: look the other way"
   
   
   Figure 2: "The CEO kinda forgot the 8% difference in customer revenue"
   
   
5. Conflicting responses (CEO vs Head of Legal vs official Twitter account) about how much you will be getting back in revenue from the new feature (48% vs 40% vs 60% respectively): Link
   
6. Changing Ts&Cs first, setting up webinars to explain later? : Link
   
7. Trying to be cute after getting called out. They tweeted and pinned this after the **** hit the fan:

I mean, I love EE. Really. I've told many, many people that EE should be the first stop on their investing/saving journey.

Is the loaned security feature a bad thing? Probably not. The way they handled this is. Makes them look underhanded. And the way they went on to handle the apparent underhandedness leaves a further bad impression.

 

[3WA]

Aaaand, it's gone!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1285934769612697600

 

[Excalibur]

Oooh, nice!
There's actually no risk involved in this if the way they've worded the contract is correct:

Is there any risk associated with lending out my holdings?

The main risk is that we are not able to return equivalent Whole Securities to you when the loan is terminated. To combat this risk, we provide you with Equity Collateral to the value of 115% of your Whole Securities and/or FWT Cash Collateral and we cede to you our rights under a Third Party Borrower Guarantee. This means that you are fully collateralised (ie covered) in the event that we are not able to return equivalent Whole Securities to you when the loan is terminated.

You sure there's no risk?

 

[3WA]

I emailed them this morning and just got confirmation that I've been opted out.

 

[Swa]

Not going after you @mr_norris, just summarizing what I've found today.

Reasons to be upset:

1. Changed Ts&Cs which affect the primary customer base, thereby changing their product without giving people the option to opt-in to this (automatic opt-in was applied)
2. Didn't inform users about the change (sent an email but not to all customers that will be affected)
3. Made it my problem that I now need to log a ticket to opt-out.
4. Weak responses to questions and queries on Twitter:
   
   View attachment 879297
   Figure 1: "don't like it then f*** off. Also here: look the other way"
   
   View attachment 879301
   Figure 2: "The CEO kinda forgot the 8% difference in customer revenue"
   
   
5. Conflicting responses (CEO vs Head of Legal vs official Twitter account) about how much you will be getting back in revenue from the new feature (48% vs 40% vs 60% respectively): Link
6. Changing Ts&Cs first, setting up webinars to explain later? : Link
7. Trying to be cute after getting called out. They tweeted and pinned this after the **** hit the fan:

View attachment 879225

I mean, I love EE. Really. I've told many, many people that EE should be the first stop on their investing/saving journey.

Is the loaned security feature a bad thing? Probably not. The way they handled this is. Makes them look underhanded. And the way they went on to handle the apparent underhandedness leaves a further bad impression.

It's this which is most concerning. From the time they responded in this thread pretending to be a customer.

 

[Dylan_G]

It's this which is most concerning. From the time they responded in this thread pretending to be a customer.

The main take away for me is... I have most of my investments with them. By most I mean way too much (TFSA+USD+ Discretionary).

We diversify investments... Might be worth a shout to look at diversifying across platforms. Other platforms might be more expensive... But they might be a bit more mature as well.

 

[shooter_za]

I emailed them this morning and just got confirmation that I've been opted out.

I did this yesterday but no response yet. My issue with this thing is that as far as I can tell, if they (EE) go bust while they are the owners of your shares, you are screwed. But I could be wrong - that section is hard to follow.

At the time of the email I could also not find the explainer on the knowledge base, not that it explains everything.

 

[microsoftword]

do we have another fractional share broker in South Africa

 

[Dylan_G]

It's this which is most concerning. From the time they responded in this thread pretending to be a customer.

Speaking of... Check out this account: https://twitter.com/Sebasti20304411?s=09

Suspicious AF.

 

[martin]

Not going after you @mr_norris, just summarizing what I've found today.

Reasons to be upset:

1. Changed Ts&Cs which affect the primary customer base, thereby changing their product without giving people the option to opt-in to this (automatic opt-in was applied)
2. Didn't inform users about the change (sent an email but not to all customers that will be affected)
3. Made it my problem that I now need to log a ticket to opt-out.
4. Weak responses to questions and queries on Twitter:
   
   View attachment 879297
   Figure 1: "don't like it then f*** off. Also, here: look the other way"
   
   View attachment 879301
   Figure 2: "The CEO kinda forgot the 8% difference in customer revenue"
   
   
5. Conflicting responses (CEO vs Head of Legal vs official Twitter account) about how much you will be getting back in revenue from the new feature (48% vs 40% vs 60% respectively): Link
6. Changing Ts&Cs first, setting up webinars to explain later? : Link
7. Trying to be cute after getting called out. They tweeted and pinned this after the **** hit the fan:

View attachment 879225

I mean, I love EE. Really. I've told many, many people that EE should be the first stop on their investing/saving journey.

Is the loaned security feature a bad thing? Probably not. The way they handled this is. Makes them look underhanded. And the way they went on to handle the apparent underhandedness leaves a further bad impression.

MyBB members (myself included) and even Easy Equities can take a leaf from your book and try to learn something from your response. Your post was informative, considerate, and sourced. Well done @Dylan_G. You've certainly inspired me to put a little more effort into my own posts on this forum. Good communication skills seem to be a rare commodity in a lot of places these days.

 

[Hamster]

Sounds like a lot of admin for very little gain. In their example, R36000 odd nets you R90 pa?

Or did I read wrong?

 

[Hamster]

I mean, I love EE.

You do? They've ****ed up so many times it's difficult to feel anything for them. I use them for the same reason I once owned a Suzuki Swift: it's cheap and reasonably ok for short distances.

Their marketing campaigns are also cringeworthy. You get companies who can pull it off and then you get those that come across as fake.

Anyway, given their track record of screwing up tax charges, dividend payouts, corporate actions etc. I have complete faith in them ****ing this up as well.

 

[zerocool2009]

See the CEO wrote an email lol!

 

[shooter_za]

I don't really care that much if they lend out my shares and pocket the money, but then I want a guarantee of absolutely ZERO extra risk. In that explainer they state the "main" risk is that they can't return the shares. Not good enough.

I've got quite a few thousand Purple shares that have done quite nicely (not dividend wise....), so it's not like I've got issues with them before this thing.

 

[Swa]

I did this yesterday but no response yet. My issue with this thing is that as far as I can tell, if they (EE) go bust while they are the owners of your shares, you are screwed. But I could be wrong - that section is hard to follow.

At the time of the email I could also not find the explainer on the knowledge base, not that it explains everything.

According to them your shares are ring fenced and supposedly safe. Don't know how accurate that is but if even they and their creditors can't get hold of them I wonder how they can implement this.

 

[Dylan_G]

MyBB members (myself included) and even Easy Equities can take a leaf from your book and try to learn something from your response. Your post was informative, considerate, and sourced. Well done @Dylan_G. You've certainly inspired me to put a little more effort into my own posts on this forum. Good communication skills seem to be a rare commodity in a lot of places these days.

Lol, thank you, @martin. That is pretty much the nicest thing anyone said to me on the Internet.

Will be giving my employer your comment to read at the next salary review (communication skills are a KPI for us)

Appreciate it.

You do? They've ****ed up so many times it's difficult to feel anything for them. I use them for the same reason I once owned a Suzuki Swift: it's cheap and reasonably ok for short distances.

Their marketing campaigns are also cringeworthy. You get companies who can pull it off and then you get those that come across as fake.

Anyway, given their track record of screwing up tax charges, dividend payouts, corporate actions etc. I have complete faith in them ****ing this up as well.

Yes, I do, for the same reasons you mentioned. They're cheap and easy. *Really* easy. That can't be discounted.

They make the barrier for entry to investing *really* low and that goes on to help a lot of people who normally would not take a chance with ETFs/shares.

 

[sandwitch]

I came in on the tail end of this . EE really hasn't impressed me this week. At all. And what makes it worse is that I'm one of the schmucks who unsubscribed to EE's mailing list and I only got to hear about EE's script lending implementation on My Broadband.