Hi Tracey, great question. Right now we understand if you are an Aussie customer of Sharesies its not possible to transfer shares to any broker – this must have something to do with their structure not giving you your own HIN.

Unfortunately this means you need to consider whether leaving the shares there attract any fees vs any capital gains implications that might mean it’s not smart to sell

Just in case this helps others, here’s a quick list from hard to easy based on feedback from our users, for many of the common trading apps:

0 = not possible
1 = quite manual (based on annecdotal feedback)
10 = less hard

1. Sharesies, Spaceship, RAIZ etc: none of these are possible as the investments are in a range of fund structures and you don’t necessarily hold the underlying shares, so they can’t be transferred. You have to sell out and move the cash. Always think about tax (get your own advice) because it may be better financially to just leave the shares where they are, even if its is messy to have more than one app.
   

1 = Vanguard Personal Investor: We love Vanguard, we love our investors buying their ETFs etc. But their transfer processes are more manual than typical brokers due to their structures.

10 = Commsec, CMC, NABtrade, Stake, Superhero, Selfwealth etc: A few clicks from our app (plus signing one form) and we send a request to your old broker to transfer your whole HIN or just the shares. It can take up to two weeks for the slow ones, but mostly happens within 5 business days.

Hope this helps.
Nick