WhiskyInvestDirect Tariff

Standard Charges

You pay three (occasionally four) charges in the normal course of using WhiskyInvestDirect.

Although we use British Pounds to illustrate our charges they may be charged in the US Dollar equivalent [currently: £1 = $]. When we settle a fee cross-currency, no commission is charged and we will use the mid-point spot price with no buy-sell spread.

1. Dealing commission of 1.75% each time you buy or sell.

2. Storage (with insurance included) for as long as you hold.

   You pay £0.208 per Litre of Pure Alcohol (LPA) per year, charged monthly (~£0.0173 per month), subject to a monthly minimum of £3.

3. Burglar Alarm

   Although it is not mandatory we strongly recommend you use the Burglar Alarm which alerts you via SMS to account withdrawals or changes to your registered mobile/cell phone number. It is enabled automatically when you first enter your mobile/cell phone number in your Account Settings.

   Within your Account Settings you have control regarding whether or not you will receive additional SMS messages for logging in, or placing orders.

   There is a nominal charge of £0.15 for the additional SMS messages.

4. Funds wire fee

   Most UK withdrawals (BACS) are free.

   Where we pay our bank to remit funds to you (e.g. US and international transfers) there is a fee. Common withdrawal fees are:

   • CHAPS: £20.
   • US-domestic ACH: $10.
   • International SWIFT: $30.

   Fow SWIFT payments, intermediary/correspondent banks may apply an additional fee which is not under WhiskyInvestDirect's control.

A small currency holding fee may also apply where our bank charges negative interest rates. Currently this does not apply to either GBP or USD.

Charges for optional services

1. Whisky withdrawal and delivery fees
2. Deceased account administration
3. Changing your linked bank account
4. Time and materials billing

Penalty Charges

1. Delayed validation
2. Password reset
3. Promotion abuse
4. Repeat small deposit surcharge
5. Return of unlinked deposits
6. Contacting your bankers
7. Machinery abuse

Charges for optional services

Whisky withdrawal and delivery fees

If you have a certificate issued by HMRC under the Warehousekeepers and Owners of Warehoused Goods Regulations (WOWGR), please contact us for information on making withdrawals.

If you do not have a WOWGR certificate and are UK-based, the charge to withdraw is 1% of the total of VAT and Duty that is payable, subject to a minimum fee of £1500. Duty is currently £28.74 per Litre of Pure Alcohol and VAT is 20% (accurate as of April 2017). All withdrawals will be bottled under the WhiskyInvestDirect brand name.

Labelling and bottling is £3 per bottle. Insured delivery fees will also be charged and will vary according to location.

For non-UK withdrawals please contact us for more information.

Deceased account administration

Not to exceed the higher of £300 or 1% of the value of the account without approval from your administrators/executors.

Changing your linked bank account

WhiskyInvestDirect reserves the right to charge you an administration cost of up to £30 for changing your linked bank account.

Time and materials billing

£65 per hour or part thereof.

WhiskyInvestDirect reserves the right to charge for exceptional work which falls outside of the normal scope of our business.

Examples : Administering accounts through Divorces, Litigation, Dissolving a Trust, Corporate Account Liquidation.

WhiskyInvestDirect will not bill T&M in excess of £65 without prior written agreement.

Penalty Charges

Delayed validation

Validation is easy. You just need to log in and upload a few identity documents. Most of the time that just means an image of a photographic ID and an image of a bank document (usually the top of your bank statement) showing relevant names, addresses, routing and account number data. Occasionally we will need further forms of identification (e.g. if the linked bank account is jointly owned, owned by a company or trust or if the WhiskyInvestDirect account is being operated by a third party). See more information about how to validate.

WhiskyInvestDirect is both required by law and motivated by security to ensure that all funded accounts are properly validated.

We ask you to validate your account within two weeks of your first deposit, and if you do not we will give you frequent reminders and ample time in which to complete this process. However, if you fail to validate after 8 weeks and repeated reminders, we will begin charging you a late validation penalty fee of £20 per month until your account is validated.

We do not want to charge you this fee - we want you to validate your account. As soon as you validate, we will re-credit your account with your most recent late validation penalty, if any.

Password reset

If you are unable to reset your password online and require assistance over the telephone the following charge will apply.

Flat fee : £15

Promotion abuse

In our standard promotion we will offer new customers a free LPA of whisky to experiment with dealing on WhiskyInvestDirect’s Order Board. This is an educational promotion which nevertheless has real value. Attempting to abuse this gift - for example by opening multiple accounts and selling directly to your main account - will cause us to debit your main account the full cost to us of your abuse and an additional Time and Materials billing appropriate to the time spent in reversing the abuse.

Repeated small deposit surcharge

We welcome small deposits - which customers usually make to perform a bona-fide test of our system, and we welcome regular deposits (for example by standing order) from customers who wish to implement a savings plan.

However we do not welcome repeated small deposits which cost us disproportionately in banking fees. If we receive more than 4 deposits in a calendar year which are each below £100 we reserve the right to redeem the cost to us in banking and internal administration. We will not make this charge before advising you by email that we will do so and giving you the opportunity to stop the repeated small deposits.

We also reserve the right to bounce, at your expense, ongoing repeated small deposits.

Return of deposits from a bank account which has not been validated as yours

In validating you prove that the source of your money is your bank account, and then your bank account is linked to WhiskyInvestDirect. If we later receive money from another account - even if it is yours - we may be obliged to return it.

Flat fee : £20

Contacting your bankers

If we have to locate and contact your bank manager to satisfy ourselves regarding matters on your account we will charge £20. You can avoid this fee by arranging for your banker to contact us directly to provide the assurance we seek, should we request you to do so.

Machinery abuse

WhiskyInvestDirect reserves the right to charge for inappropriate use of its servers by automated web trading devices which operate without appropriate regard for the WhiskyInvestDirect resources their devices require.  Ordinarily these charges will not be applied without fair warning.