After careful consideration, Shares has decided to focus on the French and EU markets and therefore to stop its activity in the UK as of August 30th 2024.
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The UK mobile application will remain available until that date and during this period you will be asked to sell all your positions and withdraw your available funds. From today until the service closes on August 30th, buying financial instruments on Shares is no longer available features. Please note that after August 30th your GBP e-money account with Modulr will no longer be active and any deposits to this account will no longer be accepted.
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Your assets are still safeguarded by our custodian, Alpaca Securities LLC, and they remain freely sellable and/or transferable.
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The timeline goes as follows:
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By July 19th 2024: UK users must sell all their positions and withdraw all their cash

Between July 19th and August 30th: Shares will sell all remaining positions at market price and return the cash to the linked payment means, banking account or cash.

After August 30th: If Shares was unable to return to you the remaining e-money in your GBP account and/or if you have been unresponsive, your funds will remain on your account and you will be able to claim them from September 2nd 2024 onwards by getting in touch with our support team through the in-app chat or by writing to support-team@shares.io who will work with Modulr to facilitate your return of funds.

Yes, you are the owner of the crypto assets you buy on the Shares platform.

These assets are stored in a custodial wallet by an external service provider. Shares holds the private keys to these wallets, meaning you cannot send or receive cryptocurrencies from this wallet to other addresses. However, you have full control over the purchase and sale of your crypto assets via the platform.

Shares is committed to protecting your assets with rigorous security practices. Users' funds are never reused for other activities, such as lending or exchanges, ensuring that only users can sell the crypto assets they own.

There are several possibilities.
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If, as of June 10th 2024, you did not have any financial instruments or cash on your account, Shares has closed it on your behalf. No fee has been applied and there is no action required from you
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If, as of July 19th 2024, you had remaining financial instruments on your account, Shares has sold all your positions at market price, without applying any trading fee.
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If, as of July 19th 2024, you had remaining cash on your account, Shares has done its best to return that cash to you via the payment means linked to your account. In the absence of a valid means of payment, Shares has tried to get in touch with you to return the money.

I, as of August 30th 2024,Shares has not been able to return your cash and if you have been unresponsive, your funds will remain on your account, handled by Shares and safeguarded by our Electronic Money Institution, ModulR FS Limited. You will be able to claim them from September 2nd 2024 onwards by getting in touch with our support team through the in-app chat or by writing to support-team@shares.io.

If you have complained to Shares UK about its services, our customer support specialists are available to help you resolve it. Although Shares is stopping its activities in the UK, the company will keep operating in France and other EU countries, which means we will always be available to deal with your complaint.
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For any question about your complaint, you may get in touch with our support team through the in-app chat or by writing to support-team@shares.io.
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Should you not be satisfied with the solution provided to your issue, you have the right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, free of charge, but you must do so within six months of the date when the solution was provided to you. If you do not refer your complaint in time, the Ombudsman will not have our permission to consider your complaint and so will only be able to do so in very limited circumstances. For example, if the Ombudsman believes that the delay was as a result of exceptional circumstances.
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The full contact details for the Financial Ombudsman Service are detailed below and further information can be found in the Ombudsman leaflet here:
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Financial Ombudsman Service, Exchange Tower, London, E14 9SR
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0800 0 234 567 (free from landlines)
0300 123 9 123 (charged at a national rate)
complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.uk

To avoid any operational complexity, we would suggest that you sell the assets held in your Shares portfolio and withdraw your funds. You will then be free to open a new investment account with any broker.

While transferring stocks from one broker to another is theoretically possible, it may not always be the case depending on the brokers. You will need to check with your new brokerage platform if they can accept an ACAT transfer from your fully-disclosed brokerage account at Alpaca Securities LLC.

Please note that ACAT transfers are typically between US-based custody firms (such as Alpaca) so many UK-based brokers may not support this.

If you hold fractional shares, these are illiquid outside of Shares and cannot be transferred to another platform or financial institution.

Should you wish to transfer the stocks on your Shares UK portfolio to another broker, we suggest you (i) get in touch with the broker of your choice to ask for the transfer to be initiated and (ii) notify us as soon as possible (at support-team@shares.io) that you have asked for said transfer and let us know which broker you have chosen.

If you experience any issue during this process, you may get in touch with our customer support specialists through the in-app chat or by writing to support-team@shares.io.

Once your account has been closed, Shares will delete all non-essential personal data. All essential data, for example personal data linked to your onboarding and Know You Customer (KYC) process will be kept by Shares for the amount of time required by the applicable regulation on Data Protection.

For more information on Shares’ treatment of your personal data or to find out how to exercise your rights, please look at our Privacy Policy or contact us at privacyrequests@shares.io or support-team@shares.io.