Some of the more progressive pension providers have started using a new system, caled Origo or similar, which means that they can submit the transfer claim online to the transferring company and arrange payment electronically. I've seen this reduce the timescales from weeks to days in some cases.

The system is fairly new and I hope to see more pension providers adopting it so clients are not out of the market for long periods.

Now that you've made the switch to a SIPP you won't have to be out of the market again if you choose to switch providers as you should be able to complete an 'in-specie' transfer. This means that you don't have to sell your shares, property or investments as you just change the owners from the trustees of your existing provider to the new ones and keep your investments intact. Simples.

You should check the prices of your pension investments on the date they were sold and then again when they are aquired by your new pension to see if you have suffered a financial loss caused by the delay in processing your transfer. Sending documents like this by second class post is unreasonable in my opinion so you could look to complain to the transferring scheme to redress the loss due to their mal-adminstration. No guarantee they will play ball but you've got nothing to loose!

BI confirm cheque received yesterday (8 calendar days after 2nd class posting by HSBC although post date stamp not confirmed).

BI saying it may be another 5 working days before funds are available for investing. If that happens my funds will have been uninvested for 22 calendar days. Fingers crossed the markets take a bit of hammering next week!

I wish SIPPs were available 15 years ago when I started my first personal pension. It seems you lose with high annual management charges, then the bid to offer spread and then you have to bear the risk that the market will hurt you for the 3 weeks it takes HSBC to send the funds to the SIPP provider.

If you are having a pension transferred it is worth asking your new provider to ask your old pension company to send the funds electronically. Also, ask you old provider if they are able to send it electronically. HSBC state they are only able to send proceeds from old M&S pension (which they now manage) by cheque. Pull the other one.

Update from BI - HSBC to blame

BI just called to say they've looked through the correspondence and it was HSBC that wanted to make the transfer by cheque and not a BI request.

This sounds right as the SW transfer went through electronically.

BI contacted HSBC who confirmed the cheque was sent 6 days ago by 2nd class post! Nice job HSBC!

In the land of faster payments the dinosaurs still live off the fat of Joe Blogg's pension.

I remember an ISA pot taking an interest holiday during a transfer a couple of years ago. I received compensation for that. I'll let you know what HSBC say this time.

I'd like to share my recent experience of consolidating some personal/stakeholder pensions into a single SIPP.

I compared Hargreaves Lansdown, BestInvest, TD Waterhouse and SIPPdeal and BESTInvest came out top for lowest start-up fees, dealing and for drawdown charges, which were my main concerns. So far so good.

BI told me it could take 3-6 weeks to effect the transfer of my pensions to the new SIPP. No problem.

BI said they were very concerned about "being out of the market" for as little time as possible. They said they would email me as soon as funds cleared. Sounds great but very disappointing in reality.

Pension transfer 1: Scottish Widows transfer took 5 weeks of which my money was uninvested for 4 or 5 working days. Not bad but I wish I'd known about being uninvested at the time I applied for the SIPP.

Also, they sent me an email 6 hours after I had noticed the funds were cleared. You may think this anal but I actually don't know if the funds had been cleared for a couple of days prior to this as I wasn't checking everyday and I only checked after I received a letter from SW saying the pension was shut down.

Pension transfer 2: M&S/HSBC transfer is still not complete after 6 weeks. HSBC told me they wewre asked by BI to send a CHEQUE (can you believe it?) with the proceed from my pension. As of today, these funds have been "out of the market" for 12 days. BI have not been able to even confirm receipt of the cheque which was supposedly posted 6 days ago.

I don't know if it is all BI's fault or some tardiness by HSBC. All I know is someone's got my money and the stock market keeps going up.

It goes to show that cheap is not everything. Maybe the other SIPP providers handle the transfer more efficiently. I'd be interested to hear others' experiences with TDW, HL and SIPPdeal.

I really wanted to recommend BI but I can't and would warn others about being uninvested.