Nucleus Financial Reviews 

Complaint not resolved after many weeks.
Nucleus are a shambles.
Do NOT use.
They employed good complaints handlers. But the key staff to action work are just not there.
I rejected a paltry offer of compensation for their errors weeks ago. I have heard nothing in reply.
The website is lousy. Staff systems have failed. Senior management counting their loot. The company is making vast profits: and will make more post merger because they have not staffed properly.
This is a good example of failing Britain. Strip/ Shaft/ run.
Get out if you can . Its hard because many other providers do not offer the hybrid self manage option.
A cynic might suggest Nucleus WANT self op clients to quit because they generate low return.
I only wish I could use the strongest anglo saxon expletive here - but I obviously will not!!!!!
Utter bilge.

Great contact staff but organisation awful . queries passed to other departments. Dont hear back. No interest in escalating a problem in order to find a solution. Entire company is dumbed down, AJ Bell could teach them customer service. sweet promises of customer care on recorded messages are empty

its been several weeks since i escalated my complaints that this company is holding onto funds my 89 year old mother desperately needs yet despite the multiple calls with empty promises of help offered still no money has been sent. i have not been offered a single reason why this company have not sent the money owed months ago
the promise of a manager calling to assist has never materialised
i cannot strongly suggest having nothing to do with this company based on this pitiful situation they have created

Professional service when dealing direct with Nucleus.

I was asked by my accountants to ask you for a P60 for last year and when i phoned I asked the girl for a P60 for giving to my accountant and was met by a rather sharp reply that the P60's were being done only at the end of the month, end of conversation, full stop. And guess what I still haven't received my P60
WHY

Do not use this company as they are incompetent and unresponsive to messages sent on their secure platform. I was previously a customer of James Hay and never had any problems or issues with them. The support staff are friendly and answer the phone quickly but the operational support behind them is completely useless. Once I get all my issues and complaints resolved I will be finding a new provider.

Quick response and effective

Have been trying to sell down funds to purchase an annuity since 8th April and yesterday they told me to contact Fidelity direct to sell funds. They will not deal with me as a direct client as the investments were made through James hay pension trustees. Am at my wits end with this company and will move as soon as I can. Their charges have increased substantially since James Hay migration and they now retain 2.5% interest on cash balances in addition to an annual management charge. Have 3 complaints outstanding two of which are over 8 weeks old. They seem to be inundated with complaints.

My SIPP and Stocks and Shares were moved by James Hay to Nucleus . I truly wished that I’d moved to another provider before that happened.

As soon as my resources were moved over I initiated transfers to other providers with the ISA transfer requested at the end of January. More than 15 weeks later I’m still in limbo and have no idea when this will be completed and am terrified that mistakes will be made that will result in losses to me.

A complaint about this registered in March still hasn’t been resolved and no timescale for resolution has been indicated.

Those serving the telephone line are all polite and helpful but can take no action to make things happen. Twice they’ve ’escalated’ my transfer but to no effect.

A consequence of registering my complaint has been that someone within the organisation decided that the original transfer request must be a duplicate and incorrectly closed it with the assumption that the transfer would be completed via the complaints process.

Everything seems to be out of control and terrifying as my SIPP and Socks & Shares ISA dominate my retirement income.

I just want my transfers to be complete without errors so that I will not have to deal with Nucleus again.

Two weeks on and the promise from Emma below that someone would be in touch unfulfilled.

Further update 05/06/2026.
Still waiting for this transfer to be complete. Two weeks after the receiving organisation requested an enabling action by Nucleus, that action has not been undertaken.
The call-back promised below by Emma still hasn’t happened.
My formal complaint regarding this transfer that I submitted on March 17th is un-answered.

What went wrong! You know very well what is wrong at the present time, your couldnt care less attitude to MANY .It is not just one or two customers who are still waiting for tax free lumps etc to appear in their account whilst Nucleus whistles dixie.. The Financial times stopped comments about this firm probably because there was so many. We have heard every excuse under the sun and been kept waiting on the phone for an age and an eternity every time we have rung. Calls always end with "you will have it in the next couple of days. We have been waiting since the first of May 2026 and still no sign of it. DO NOT USE NUCLEUS they say they have a new system in place which has caused all the trouble....yea right.Well we shall not only be getting the tax free lump hopefully soon but the rest too, moving it away from nucleus.

The performance of my investment is very good

I have tried several times to reset my password and still have not managed to do this

Re JamesHay IPS No. S32369
James Hay agreed to make an investment with funds held in my SIPP in early March 2026 and the fairly substantial sum was taken from my account on 9 April. Since then I have heard nothing despite sending emails to the relative department and then phoning in the absence of any replies. In desperation I wrote to the Complaints Manager who advises me that it will take up to four weeks to deal with this matter, is this really acceptable ? Meanwhile I have no idea where the money is which obviously is causing me very considerable concern.

The team answered quickly, talked me through what I needed to do and it was all very straightforward. Very pleased.

A little confusion regarding a payment but was rectified.

THINK VERY CAREFULLY BEFORE INVESTING YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY WITH THIS COMPANY AND IF ALREADY INVESTED WITH THEM CONSIDER MOVING TO A COMPANY THAT VALUES YOU.

I had just over £400k with them and they don’t appear to care!

What an appalling company to deal with. My SIPP was previously with James Hay where I found the service to be amazing (great portal, phone answered quickly, messages replied to, always did what they said they were going to do). Unfortunately during early 2026 it appears that James Hay was incorporated into Nucleus Financial and that is where the problems started. I requested a sum of tax free cash which is a process that they said would take up to 15 days. Slightly inaccurate as it ended up taking months and that is despite me doing the legwork for them and chasing up investment companies for them (is that not what I pay them to do?). As every time I contacted them I was fobbed off with “will will escalate this for you” and “we do not have timescales for that / when you will receive an update” this resulted in my having to chase them up twice weekly for 3 months. During this process I submitted a complaint which was eventually replied to with an agreement of a derisory amount of compensation of £271 that would be paid within 5-15 days. Some 6 weeks later this has not arrived and when I have phoned them today they have again come up with the usual reluctance to take any ownership / make efforts to resolve / timescales for resolution as per usual.

As a result of the incompetence they have shown I was also subject to a significant market drop as a result of the Iran crisis and resultant reduction to the amount of TFC available. £271 in compensation goes nowhere near to covering these losses, let alone the cost of my time to push them to complete my request. Ironically as they have so far failed to pay the compensation it appears that they cannot even get this right!

I do have some sympathy for the poor staff who presumably have to deal with with the many disgruntled Nucleus customers that I have heard about and who have also received the same shoddy service.

I WILL BE MOVING MY MONEY FROM NUCLEUS very soon and when asked am telling as many people as I can about my experience with them.

If somebody in a senior position with Nucleus wishes to contact me I would be more than happy to discuss with them the just how bad their service has been.

I have given 1 star as there is no option to give any lower

No information was given when my monthly payment was delayed for over a week.
Only when I phoned did I get the info but not adequately explaining why it was delayed

Nucleus Financial has given us a very poor experience. My father’s pension payments have been late, the portal is confusing, responses are slow, and the information provided has sometimes been wrong.

The most worrying issue was the handling of his Power of Attorney, which was returned with an incorrect reference and a letter saying he was the attorney for someone we have never heard of. For a company dealing with pensions and sensitive financial documents, that is unacceptable and has caused unnecessary stress and concern.

Ross Allen COO…I wonder if you consider this acceptable? Financial / pensions Ombudsman Service next

Giving 1 star as there is no option for 0 or negative rating.
Calling daily for over a week regarding my drawdown. No progress. No payment.
I asked to speak to a Manager in the Benefits department but it would appear even Nucleus's own Customer Service staff are only allowed to email the departments, they cannot speak to them.
Why the FCA are not investigating Nucleus/James Hay I do not know. The number of desperate people on Trust Pilot trying to get their own money out of these companies is beyond belief.

I complained about the appalling service in connection with a withdrawal from my pension (it was eventually paid two days short of 11 weeks later). On Thursday this week, 8 weeks later, I received an email indicating that the Complaints Team "are making good progress investigating my complaint but are not yet in a position to reply properly".
Based on my experiences with Nucleus I don't believe that for a moment and suspect they are snowed under with complaints and have likely not started to investigate. I appreciate this is supposition on my part so this review is instead based on their failure to respond within the 8 week timescale. And reading other reviews illustrates I'm not alone!