Degiro can't set up Flatex Cash Account for Joint Investment Account - Looking for Alternatives

Dear All,

As some of you may know Degiro for about two years now has been setting up Flatex Bank Accounts for their existing Clients, so that Degiro would no longer have to keep the Client's cash on the Money Market Fund, on which Degiro was losing money.
Yesterday I found out from there that they will not be able to do so for Joint Accounts.
Any cash held in a Joint Degiro Account will soon be transferred to the personal Bank Account linked to the the Join Degiro Account.
As a consequence, given that my wife and I have a Joint Degiro Account, we are now planning to set up a new Joint Trading Account with another broker and then transfer our portfolio from Degiro to the new Broker.
Are there any online brokers catering for Irish residents that you would suggest considering to set up a Joint Account?
Thank you

Although the account will be in one name, I think you can arrange that it is treated as a joint account for tax purposes, which I suppose is the question you are really interested in

Hi, thanks,
what account will be in one name? Are you suggesting that I could set up an individual account with Degiro and then move the portfolio from the Joint Account to the individual Account?
For Tax Purposes my understanding of the Revenue rules is that if the account is one name only you are can only used the CTG allowance of that person, but cannot use the allowance one of the wife/partner.

Let's start again - are Degiro saying that your Investment account can no longer be a joint account or that the Flatex Cash account is not a joint account?

Ok, now:
My investment Account can continue to be a Joint Account, however Degiro cannot set up a Flatex Cash Account for Joint Investment Accounts.
The point in them opening Flatex Cash Accounts for their Clients is that Degiro is phasing out the use of Money Market Funds, where they currently keep any unused Cash of the Client.
As Degiro won't be able to keep my cash in neither a Flatex Account or the Money Markets Funds, they say that they will have to automatically transfer to my personal bank account (i.e. the account that I've always used to send the money to invest) any cash in my Degiro account that is not invested.

So there is no problem with the investments as they are held in a joint account.

And the cash does not have any investment implications.

Obviously, you will have to come to an arrangement re transfers of monies to Degiro in the event that you want to trade - I transfer money from a Bank of Ireland account to Degiro and it arrives the following morning.

Or is that not an option any more?

In which case, you definitely need to move to a different broker - and of course, meet the same problem there

I also transfer money from an AIB account and it arrives often in the same day.
And this will continue to be possible, however:
- with a frequency that they are not able to specify, they will transfer any cash balance back to my AIB account
- as I receive dividends into my Degiro account, Degiro will start to transfer to my AIB account small amount very frequently (it is also unclear what the implications will be in term of fees)
- if I transfer a sum to Degiro from my AIB account, I must hope to be lucky enough that on that day they will transfer it back to my AIB account before I even get the chance to invest it
- I can no longer keep a significant amount of cash in Degiro to use promptly if a good opportunity arises
- it just sounds messy all around and it Joint Accounts holders are clearly penalised.
- why would I meet the same problem with a different broker? This is a very Degiro-specific issue.

What is the issue with having a non-joint Flatex account - can it not be linked to the joint investment account?

DeGiro charge 0.5% interest on deposits above 2500 so I like to keep my cash balance there below that and only transfer in when I'm about to buy.

N26 have an instant transfer option for 99c, when I tested that it took DeGiro about an hour to show the transfer (my guess is it was instant between N26 and DeGiro but DeGiro's accounts took a while to update). So that would be what I'd use if I felt I needed to buy something quickly.

Ideally you could use an Irish bank to give you that quick transfer - but not sure if I trust them to get it sent as quickly as N26 - and last time I checked it was around 20-25e for BOI to do a same day transfer. Think DeGiro warned me about some problem with dividend taxation unless I used an Irish account - but none of my shares pay dividends.

jpd said:

What is the issue with having a non-joint Flatex account - can it not be linked to the joint investment account?

Click to expand...

Degiro say that they cannot set up a Flatex Account (whether Joint or non-Joint) for Degiro Joint Investment Accounts.