Found out today that Post Office does not work with the Trading 212 spending card, either at self service or counter 
Worked fine at Aldi afterwards.
Checked in app, and appears to be an excluded merchant category
Postal Services
Code: 9402
Strange category to exclude. Gambling I could understand
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Presumably itâs because of potential for cash recycling? Buy a load of cash priced stamps on a card then redeem them for cash.
Hadnât thought of that. Can you use Curve to get around that?
Doesnât work behind Curve at post office either. At least it didnât in June 2024 when I got a declined transaction for a ÂŁ3 postage fee.
Paying for goods with postage stamps? New one on me
Does anyone know if you still get the 1.5% cashback if you use 212 card ON CURVE? I am suspecting not but will give it a go in the next few days.
I donât know, but youâll need to be quick, if your promo ends on 5 September, like mine.
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Does it just revert back to 0.5% after that date?
It does indeed.
I have stopped using it altogether as cannot be bothered moving money to chase pennies any more.
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Fun while it lasted.
Was it fun? Pies to begin with give you fractional shares most (if not all) of the time, right? How do you actually own these shares, companies donât have fractional shares. T212 owns them, with varying levels of rights (not enshrined in law) given to you (not uniformly across all stocks).
Iâm surprised government allows something so vague to exist - I think while they should administer the systems that the shares should be held in our names (or that what was holding shares in our name bestowed upon us in rights is extended to this system of beneficial ownership of shares).
From what I understand, theyâre not owned by T212 but Interactive Brokers and are ringfenced from T212âs assets.
However, they do allow transfers out, but only whole shares âif you have 1.5 shares of a company, 1 transfers out. Presumably the .5 is transferred as cash.
Theyâre a good way to buy expensive shares over time, but I probably wouldnât put all of my eggs in any single basket, T212 included.
This still isnât owning the shares, if Interactive Brokers had issues or T212 Iâd bet it would take a while before you had any chance of effectively owning those shares again
Youâre not putting your eggs in a single basket when buying shares generally - this is kinda my complaint with nominee structures, youâre inherently stuck with your eggs in the basket of a broker and are beholden to a worse deal than owning the shares directly
If T212 was directly registering your shares you would have dividends paid directly to your bank account (or sent to your house via cheque), voting instructions and AGMs all directly sent to you. I donât actually think thereâs a way to do this anymore though aside from directly purchasing from a registrar. Government should really look at changing laws around nominee structures
I refer to the point at which they were market leading Cash ISA providers. I never bothered with the other nonsense.
The main issue with directly owning shares is that theyâre not as liquid as those bought through a platform âunless youâre on first-name terms with someone with a seat on the exchange, that is.
I think owning shares through a nominee is fine for most people, who are likely dealing with smaller sums than someone on a trading desk would see in a typical day. As long as the platform has a solid business; I continue to get votes at AGMs; dividends; and the ability to transfer shares out to another platform, thatâs fine.
Misconception, there is a way for brokers to offer you a direct account at the clearing house, managed through their software; that is how theyâre selling your stocks anyways, right? Instructions sent via CREST.
You get votes at AGMs, but T212 is voting for you, you donât actually have a right to that vote. Dividends arenât paid to you, theyâre paid to T212, you then take the extra step to access them yourself if you want to. I also think T212 doesnât support share transfers, right? They just sell them and send over the money?
If a company is sanctioned I canât actually do anything with my shares (I have shares in Evraz) and I donât own them and canât transfer them out. T212 wonât support me transferring to the registrar either.
The problem is - nominee structures are a lot cheaper to run and as a result every broker has pretty much stopped offering direct crest accounts where you actually get your name on the shares and the rights associated with them.
They do support transfers in specie now.
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