Failed broker hurts savers

TRADERS face being locked out of their accounts for months after stockbroker SVS Securities collapsed into administration following a City watchdog investigation.

Customers will now be unable to buy and sell shares or pull money out, until administrators Leonard Curtis have confirmed its books are in order.

Clients’ money and shares will be returned to them, and will not be used to pay off any SVS debts, Leonard Curtis said.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) emphasised that, should customers suffer any shortfall due to wrongdoing or poor accounting at SVS, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme will cover losses up to £85,000.

But traders on Twitter were panicked. One user, Adam Windust, said: ‘My shares are all in here. Cannot log in and no one is answering the phone!’

Another said: ‘I have an execution-only account there too. Won’t be trading those shares for a while.’

The broker failed after the FCA ordered it to stop trading activities, and blocked it from selling its own assets or its clients’.

The watchdog opened a probe, acting on intelligence it received about the assets in which clients’ money was being invested.

It follows the collapse of broker Beaufort Securities last year after an FCA intervention, amid allegations of fraud.

SVS matches investors with firms on London’s Alternative Investment Market, as well as foreign exchange trading. Since the administration on Monday, 14 firms have said SVS will no longer be their broker.