Not upheld: service failure - delayed rebalancing and missed fund dealing cut-offs complaint against AJ Bell Management Limited trading as AJ Bell InvestCentre

Decision detail

Summary

Mr G complained that AJ Bell delayed the rebalancing of his SIPP on 18 September 2025, causing his transactions to miss same-day dealing cut-off times for three funds and resulting in financial loss when fund prices increased overnight. AJ Bell explained that the rebalance was initiated as early as possible prior to market opening but the batch processing of thousands of accounts meant individual transactions were not processed until 12.40pm, after the cut-off times. The ombudsman found that AJ Bell acted reasonably by initiating the process as early as feasible and that the early cut-off times (11.15am and 11.45am) are outside AJ Bell's control and common in the industry. The ombudsman rejected the complaint, finding no evidence of avoidable delays or unreasonable conduct by AJ Bell.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that AJ Bell initiated the rebalance process as early as possible prior to market opening on 18 September 2025, which is the earliest feasible time. The delay in processing individual accounts within the batch was due to the resource-intensive nature of processing thousands of accounts sequentially, not operational failure. The early same-day dealing cut-off times (11.15am and 11.45am) are outside AJ Bell's control and are common in the industry. It would not be feasible or fair to ensure all accounts containing funds with early deadlines are rebalanced within the few hours between market opening and those cut-off times. Split execution does not inevitably result in consumer detriment and can sometimes be advantageous. The ombudsman rejected the argument that AJ Bell should have prioritized Mr G's account or used an ad hoc rebalance, as the account was correctly included in the scheduled batch rebalance.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website