Fluke wrote:I want to make a withdrawal from my AJBell SIPP and as I haven't done this before they're asking for a copy of my bank statement, the one to which the SIPP is linked, they are asking for it to be emailed to them from the email address that they have for me on their files. They do offer the alternative to send by post if I prefer.
This has always been a big no-no hasn't it, emailing important/sensitive stuff from/to regular (ie not especially secure) email addresses, but it seems to be being done more and more now, e.g. insurance policies containing all your personal details are routinely emailed etc. So what is the current position DAK? AJBell must think it's secure enough or presumably they wouldn't be asking. Would they?
There's a risk. Maybe not a high risk, but a risk.
(Your email would have to go through a server operated (or infected) by someone with malicious intent, and then they'd have to spot it. Or there's also the risk that someone could hack your email account and view it directly via that. I wouldn't necessarily say the risks were high, but I'd be a little nervous about chancing it... particularly with financial stuff)Would AJ Bell accept you sending it encrypted?
Frustratingly, Microsoft seems to have removed the built in password protect option on Zip files ....
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/win ... 5a218aeb32 .. so I could imagine AJBell might be a little reluctant to bother with the hassle, unless they've already got an 'approved' method of sending encrypted, but if they had, I guess they would already have told you.
Just remember though, if you're sending bank statements, it'll be your bank account, and not your AJ Bell account, that will be at risk - unless you also include enough information in the email to give away your AJ Bell account details as well - but my point is, the main risk won't be for AJ Bell, it'll be with you and your bank account. So I wouldn't be surprised if AJ Bell aren't entirely 'understanding', and just leave the choice up to you, but won't be prepared to faff about with third party encryption (their IT policy probably won't allow their staff to install any applications to decode, etc).
I take it they don't have a secure 'upload' available on your account where you could upload such documents directly and securely? It would seem to make sense for such a feature if they often ask people to send electronic documents as proof, etc. But I guess they'd have told you already if they had such a facility.
To be honest, you're probably better just sending them snail mail.
Caveat: It does seem like an odd request if you already have the bank account linked to your brokerage account.
I'm pretty sure that when I've linked accounts, my brokers have someway of verifying that the linked account is in the same name as the brokerage account. Though it has been a while since I've setup anything new with my brokers - I've had the accounts running a while now.
Is it possible that whoever you spoke to was perhaps new and didn't understand the system? Might be worth ringing again, hoping you get through to someone else, and starting your request from scratch, omitting to mention you've already spoken to someone.
Alternatively, if they'll accept a screenshot, could you part-mask out some information... like only leave the last few digits of your account number?