Transact

Transact is an investment platform: a single online service that holds ISAs, pensions, investment bonds and general investment accounts together in one portfolio, known on the platform as "wrappers". It is used mainly through a financial adviser, who chooses the investments and gives Transact instructions on your behalf, while Transact handles the administration: buying, holding, collecting income and paying money out. It does not give advice itself.

Transact is an investment platform you reach through a financial adviser rather than directly: your adviser recommends and manages the portfolio, and Transact holds the investments and cash inside tax "wrappers" such as a general investment account, an ISA, a SIPP or a personal pension¹. Neither Transact nor the firm behind it provides advice on the suitability of products, and staff are not rewarded on the basis of the number or value of sales, transactions or services undertaken⁴.

Transact accounts: ISAs, pensions, bonds and investment accounts

Transact's core idea is the portfolio: one login, one charge structure, and several different tax "wrappers" inside it. The four types of ISA available in the UK are cash ISAs, stocks and shares ISAs, innovative finance ISAs and lifetime ISAs⁶, and Transact's platform is built to hold ISA money alongside other wrappers rather than as a standalone savings product. If you are comparing ISA options generally, see our guide to ISAs.

The pension side is where Transact has its named products. The Transact Personal Pension Plan is its main personal pension, and the Transact Section 32 Buy Out Bond is used to hold money transferred from an old occupational pension scheme. Both sit inside the same portfolio structure as your other wrappers, so a household can keep pensions, ISAs and general investments in one place and see them valued together. For background on how pensions work and what your options are, see our pensions guide, and for how investing through a platform fits with other ways of investing, see investing.

Alongside ISAs and pensions, the platform holds investment bonds and general investment accounts: unwrapped holdings with no particular tax shelter. Transact administers all of these but does not advise on them. Its terms are explicit that it does not administer or advise on investments in the sense of managing them for you: it will not send you copies of reports and accounts, meeting and voting information, or other documents about corporate actions, and it will not exercise the voting rights attached to your investments unless you agree that in writing, in which case a fee may be charged⁴. Decisions about what to buy and sell rest with you and your adviser.

How the Transact charges work: annual charge, wrapper fees and dealing

Transact does not publish flat fees in its terms and conditions. Instead, charges are set out in two documents that sit alongside them: the Transact Annual Charge Table and the Transact Charges Schedule, which hold the current percentages. The terms explain how those percentages are applied, and that structure is what matters when you are trying to work out what you pay.

The main cost is the annual charge. It is calculated as a percentage of the average value of your cash balances and of your investments over each month, deducted at the end of each month, and pro-rated by the number of days in the period⁴. So the charge scales with the size of your portfolio: as the value rises, the pound amount rises, and as it falls, the charge falls with it. The percentage applied to cash is stated separately from the percentage applied to investments, in the Annual Charge Table⁴.

Two further rules shape what you actually pay:

• No adviser, higher multipliers. For any period in which you do not have an adviser appointed, the percentage multipliers for the annual charge are increased, as set out in the Transact Charges Schedule⁴. An adviser-led account is therefore cheaper than the same account held without one.
• Rebates are reinvested, not pocketed. Where funds pay cash rebates of their annual management charges, you are deemed to have instructed Transact to use those rebates to buy units in one or more Rebate Reinvestment Funds. Those funds are themselves charged the Transact annual charge, and the funds used may be changed at any time without prior notice⁴.

Transact also reserves the right to increase its administration charges for all wrappers from 1 January each year. Any increase is limited to the percentage rise in the Average Weekly Earnings Index or the Retail Price Index over the 12 months ending 30 September of the previous year⁴. That cap applies to administration charges specifically; other charges are governed by their own terms. If Transact ever introduces a charge for posted paper correspondence, it must give you no less than thirty days' written notice first⁴.

If you cancel within the cooling-off period, Transact will not charge any annual charges on investments or cash, or wrapper administration charges, though other charges and fees remain payable⁴. For today's percentages, check the Annual Charge Table and Charges Schedule on Transact's own site, or ask your adviser to talk you through them against the size of your portfolio.

Using Transact through a financial adviser

Transact is built around the adviser relationship. Your adviser recommends the platform, chooses the investments, and gives instructions, while Transact executes and administers. The charging structure reinforces this: as above, the annual charge multipliers are increased for any period without an appointed adviser⁴.

The division of labour has practical consequences for who can tell Transact what. Instructions to set up or increase adviser payments, or payments for a discretionary investment manager, generally must come from you, not from your adviser⁴. And there is a geographic restriction worth knowing before you travel: Transact will not accept any instructions from you while you are in the USA. It may, at its discretion, accept an instruction from your adviser instead, but only where it is satisfied there is evidence that you have been notified and have not objected within 30 days⁴. If you spend time in the USA, agree with your adviser in advance how instructions will be handled while you are there.

Transact does not step into the adviser's shoes in other ways either. It does not advise on investments, does not reclaim tax deducted at source on income from foreign investment holdings⁴, and leaves corporate actions, reports and votes to you and your adviser unless you arrange otherwise in writing. If you do not have an adviser and are looking for one, there are several recognised routes: searching online, checking specialist investment publications and the investment pages of major newspapers, talking to your accountant or solicitor, and contacting trade bodies such as IFA Promotion or the Personal Finance Society⁷.

Family linking: sharing charges across a family group

Because Transact charges as a percentage of the value held on the platform, households sometimes hold several wrappers, for example his and her ISAs, a pension and a bond, inside one family portfolio so that the combined value falls into a lower percentage band. The mechanics of any family linking arrangement, including which wrappers can be linked and how the percentages are then applied, are set out in the Transact Charges Schedule rather than in the terms and conditions, and the schedule can change⁴.

If you are considering this, the practical questions to put to your adviser are: which wrappers count towards the linked total, whether the linking survives a death or divorce, and what happens to the charge if one family member transfers out. Note also the closure trigger described later in this page: transferring out or selling and withdrawing 95% or more of the value of the investments and cash in one or more wrappers can cause Transact to close the portfolio⁴, which would end any linking arrangement built on it.

Cash in your Transact account and how interest is paid

Cash in a Transact portfolio is not a savings account. It is money waiting to be invested or withdrawn, held at banks under the client money rules rather than as a deposit with Transact itself. The terms state that such cash is available for investment or withdrawal on a mixture of terms: some instant access, and some on terms of up to 95 days' notice⁴. In practice this means that not all of the cash in your portfolio can necessarily be moved the same day, and your adviser can tell you how your cash is split.

Interest on cash is paid according to the rates in Transact's current schedule, which the terms do not fix; check the platform's own site for today's rates. What the terms do fix is what happens to cash nobody touches. If there has been no activity on cash in your portfolio for six years, Transact may remove that cash from its client money bank account. Before doing so it writes to you, and you have 30 days to respond to that letter before the removal happens⁴. Making sure Transact holds a current address for you matters for exactly this reason.

Taking money out: one-off and regular withdrawals

You can withdraw cash from your portfolio, but not immediately. Transact will only accept an instruction to make a cash withdrawal after your portfolio has been open for at least seven business days, once its anti-money laundering and client approval processes are completed⁴.

Regular withdrawals, useful if you are drawing an income, can be set up to be paid on the 7th, 17th or 27th day of the month, or the next business day if your selected date is not a business day⁴. Regular investment transactions run on their own dealing dates: regular purchases are aggregated and dealt on the ninth day of each month, and regular sales on the nineteenth day of each month, or the next business day⁴.

Where the money goes matters. Transact's policy is always to make payments from your portfolio to your nominated account, which will be a UK bank or building society account with FSCS cover and membership of the Contingent Reimbursement Model Code. Payment to an electronic money institution (EMI) is permitted only at Transact's absolute discretion, and the terms warn that this carries a significantly increased risk of loss, as many e-money firms are not banks⁴. In plain terms: money paid to a properly protected bank account is covered by the FSCS up to its limits; money sitting with some payment apps and e-money firms is not.

One further rule affects anyone who has borrowed within the portfolio. Transact has a general lien over all investments and cash held, meaning a right to retain your property for as long as a debt owed by you remains unpaid, until all debts, liabilities and obligations owed under the terms are settled⁴.

When Transact can close or change your account

Several rules in the terms allow Transact to close or wind down a portfolio, and knowing them prevents surprises.

• Cooling-off. When you open a wrapper you have 30 days to change your mind and cancel it, with no annual charges or wrapper administration charges on cancellation⁴.
• The 95% trigger. If you transfer out, or sell and withdraw the proceeds of, 95% or more of the value of the investments and cash in one or more wrappers, Transact may close the portfolio. It will tell you in writing the date of closure, giving you no less than seven days' notice⁴.
• If Transact stops providing the service. If Transact ceases to provide the wrap service, it will notify you in writing and give you twelve months from the date of notification to close or transfer your portfolio, with 30 days' written notice before any forced transfer to another UK-based platform⁴.

The ISA terms add two further rules, which operate differently. Transact may close an ISA by giving 30 days' written notice, unless circumstances justify shorter notice. Separately, for a Lifetime ISA, HMRC validation of your personal details is required, and if they are not validated within 30 days of Transact receiving the application, Transact reserves the right to void the Lifetime ISA⁴. If you hold a Lifetime ISA, respond promptly to any request for details.

Help for vulnerable customers and complaints

The Consumer Duty requires financial firms to support you while you are using their product or service, and to be flexible and find ways to support customers in vulnerable circumstances⁸. Vulnerability covers a wide range of situations: bereavement, illness, mental capacity limitations, and life events that make it harder to engage with financial matters. If your circumstances change, telling Transact or your adviser means the support the Duty requires can actually be put in place.

To complain, contact Transact's customer feedback team: by phone on 020 7608 4900, by email at customerfeedback@integrafin.co.uk, or by post to 4th Floor, 2 Gresham Street, London EC2V 7AD⁴. Give the firm a chance to respond first. If you are not satisfied with its final response, or if eight weeks pass without one, you can take the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which looks at complaints about investments and can order redress. Complaints that involve discrimination are also within the ombudsman's remit⁹.

If a Transact client dies: what families need to do

When a Transact client dies, the portfolio does not simply pass to the family. It is an asset of the estate, and there is a process to work through.

First, tell Transact about the death in writing, by phone or by email, and send the original death certificate. Dealing, regular transactions and online access stop, and the portfolio is valued at the date of death. Once the personal representatives obtain the Grant of Representation, they send a sealed copy to Transact, and the assets can then be distributed and the account closed.

Two rules from outside Transact's own terms shape this stage. Once a firm knows a consumer is deceased, the rules for financial firms require it to take all reasonable steps to communicate instead with a personal representative of the estate or its beneficiaries¹¹. And HMRC must be told who is dealing with the money, property and possessions of the person who died: if you cannot call the helpline, you fill in form P1000¹².

If the deceased had a financial adviser, there is a Transact-specific step: the adviser must confirm in writing within thirty days that they are able to continue giving Transact instructions on behalf of the personal representatives⁴. Families should also notify the adviser directly, since the adviser may hold the clearest record of what the portfolio contains and what the client intended.

How your money is protected: client money rules and FSCS

Protection on the Transact platform works on two levels. The first is the client money and custody regime: your cash is held at banks under the client money rules, separate from Transact's own money⁴, and your investments are held legally by a nominee company, so they are not part of the firm's general assets⁴. This separation is designed so that if the firm fails, your assets are not caught up in its own finances. Where client money has to be distributed back to customers after a failure, FSCS cover extends even to the costs deducted by the joint special administrators for distributing the client money pool, in most cases⁵.

The second level is the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. FSCS is the UK's financial compensation scheme that protects customers of financial services firms if they fail or have stopped trading⁸. Transact's own terms state it plainly: if you make a valid claim against Transact for your investments or cash and it cannot meet its liabilities in full, you may be entitled to compensation from the FSCS, with the amount and scope of cover set out in the key features document for each wrapper⁴. Because cover is described per wrapper, read the key features document for the specific account you hold, or ask your adviser to summarise it.