Nucleus Reviews 

In October 2025 I wrote a review outlining the problems with the takeover between Nucleus and James Hay. 10 months later ans the service is getting worse month by month. Despite three formal complaints nothing has been answered. It is impossible to speak to to anyone senior in the Company but supposedly the CEO Ross Allan signs all communications. I spoke to our fund managers today and apparently we are not alone in experiencing these problems since the new platform was introduced. We are now looking to move from Nucleus as we consider their customer service is not fit for purpose. Their incompetence is beyond belief in actioning simple requests which even the staff are unable to reply to. But the most annoying part is these poor staff are not allowed to pass problems up the line or arrange for customers to speak to senior management. Consequently they are in the firing line which is not acceptable. I challenge the CEO, Ross, to have the courage to actually speak to a customer. I will not hold my breath.
Since writing this review I received an email from the complaints team upholding my original complaint made months ago regarding the service issues we had experienced which is appreciated. However events of yesterday were not covered so I tried to contact the Complaint Handler who had emailed me. I was told by Nucleus that was not possible. So .much for customer service.
Unfortunately I have received numerous responses as this one from Nucleus but nothing gets sorted.
I have managed to speak to a member of the service team who again took full details of both my complaint and my wife's so I will wait to see what comes of that.
I have now missed two months payments this year.
This month my wife's payment was reduced and although Nucleus admitted they had got it wrong they now expect her to correct their mistake and put the amount back to where it was.
I am still waiting for a call from the CEO if he even exists so will be sending registered letters to all listed Directors of the company expressing our frustrations. We know we are not the only clients experiencing these problems so think twice before using the services of Nucleus. There are other options out there.

You cannot get an answer from their helpdesk - several secure messages have not been answered and the helpdesk just says sorry and says they cannot speak with anyone internally

Another very helpful agent who dealt with my enquiry quickly and effectively. Thank you Marta,for your time today. Another example of the good service I receive from Nucleus Customer Services.

Absolutely attrocious company who have superimposed their system on top of the James Hay product with horrendous results. The staff have no idea how to resolve the issues and the senior managers are not much better, you wait days for them to return phone calls despite a 24 hour promise.

Right hand knows what the left hand is doing which means you don’t have to repeat yourself and explain requirements time and again. Got the answers and actions we needed quickly and without fuss.

I reported an issue with incorrect pension contributions being taken and was assured it would be corrected. Weeks later, the incorrect transactions are still on my account and no timeline has been provided for when the corrections will be completed.

Communication has been slow, and despite repeated follow‑ups, I have not received clear updates or confirmation of progress. I appreciate that the process may be complex, but the lack of visibility and the delays have been very frustrating.

I hope the matter is resolved soon, but based on my experience so far, I cannot rate the service positively.

Easy to contact and spoke to a knowledgeable, helpful adviser

Very helpful

Nucleus has to be THE most pedantic & difficult pensions firm - being taken over by James Hay didn't help!

Example, I have changed by bank details using the bank switching service..simple - except for Nucleus. They wanted a certified bank statement of new account - who issues bank statements in this day & age? I advised I have the letter from my new bank which details my old AND new account details - they wanted that certified!!! I sent the original - which they seem to have lost.

EVERY single transaction / contact is protracted / awkward / difficult. Almost nothing can be done on line - they seem to operating in the 1990s! This is coming from an ex-employee in the financial service sector & I've seen the industry from the late 1980s.

I am highly dissatisfied with the administration of Nucleus Financial. A standard cash SIPP transfer to AJ Bell has now been outstanding for over three months since the initial instructions were safely received via Royal Mail recorded delivery.

Leaving a client's retirement funds in limbo for 90+ days completely breaches the spirit of the FCA Consumer Duty guidelines regarding unreasonable exit barriers.

Worse still, I issued a combined formal complaint to both my fund manager (Evelyn Partners) and the Nucleus Complaints Department early last week, (30/6/26).

While Evelyn Partners responded within 24 hours to formally launch an investigation, Nucleus has failed to even acknowledge the email.
This is a formal complaint matter regarding an unacceptable administrative delay and potential market detriment. I require an immediate update on when my funds will be sent to AJ Bell, along with my official complaint reference number.

Hopeless organisation. Delayed my pension payments for months and could not explain why, neither could they give any indication as to when payment would be made, leading to stress and significant costs to mitigate. Contradictory information from the help desk. Even the managers who were finally engaged could not meet their commitments to call back. Complaint was raised but even that was mismanaged. Avoid this organisation if you can.

Use of telephone contact with key data used for identification purposes saved the need for long written forms to identify the actions regarding combined changes in ISA disinvestment and receiving bank

It is nearly impossible to grasp the utter incompetence of nucleus Financial. I have finally after 10 weeks managed to obtain my transfer to my annuity provider. In total I have made over 30 phone calls/emils/portal messages in this process. Permission for my annuity broker was, would you believe, confirmed by letter from Nucleus over a week after the funds were transferred. So most of the "batting" was done by myself and my independent Financial Advisor.

Nucleus is designed for inertia. No department has any contact with any other department other than by email. It has taken over two weeks at a time to correct very simple issues like cancelling a pending direct debit or correcting an incorrect NI number. And this is after continual chasing. Everything is "escalated" but nothing seems to happen.

Even when Nucleus were finally dragged kicking and screaming to make the transfer, it was made incorrectly using an incorrect reference number so acknowledgment of receipt of funds took over a week longer than it needed to.

I have registered a complaint with the Pensions Ombudsman subject to a compensation claim and intend to report Nucleus to the FCA for fundamental flaws in their procedures.

Avoid like the plague!!!!!!

Very unhelpful staff on the live messaging service today from 'Heather'.

Clearly not happy that a client was asking questions directly to Nucleus about a large and important withdrawal which is running late with no explanation as to why.

This was made clear when she pointed out that live messaging was for "Quick Hit Queries" - presumably that means queries which don't require her to make any effort? I don't know.

In any case - a rather rude and evasive conversation with zero progress and a further delayed withdrawal.

For today Nucleus, you get zero stars.

My late mother's pension was held with James Hay Associates.

On her death that pension was to be split between myself and my two brothers: myself and one brother being resident in European countries.

The family's experience with James Hay was terrible.

Initially they said that giving the pension as per the will wasn't something that they were used to doing, especially if recipients weren't UK residents.

They were foot dragingly slow. The call centre cue was ponderous and their official representative was never available.

The official documents relating to residence that had been carefully colated and signed by our lawyers were ignored and 40% emergency tax was paid without our knowledge before the remaining payments were sent in dribs and drabs.

As a financial institution they appear to have zero knowledge of financial matters.

As an organisation, there is none; it's chaos.

On the positive side, at least we received some money; the complete unprofessionalism of James Hay Associates made me seriously wonder if we were going to receive anything at all.

I would give zero stars if Trustpilot allowed it.
My experience with Nucleus Financial Platforms Ltd has been nothing short of appalling. I submitted a fully completed instruction for my SIPP to be transferred in specie to another provider. At no point did I authorise the sale of my investments. Despite this, in April I discovered that Nucleus had authorised liquidation of my entire pension portfolio without my consent.
This unauthorised action has caused:
• loss of capital growth
• missed dividend payments
• delays preventing me from accessing my pension on my 60th birthday
• significant emotional distress
What makes this even harder to accept is that no one at Nucleus seems to care that this is my money — effectively my life savings — which I currently have no access to until they sort out their own mistakes.
Communication has been consistently poor. My formal complaint (submitted 30 April) remains unresolved. Nucleus even attempted to treat a later escalation as a “new” complaint, apparently to reset the FCA’s eight week deadline. My Data Subject Access Request was also sent late, is incomplete, and I have had to involve the Information Commissioner’s Office.
There is supposedly an “executive complaints” email address — but escalating to that level has still not produced a satisfactory response.
I will now be forced to escalate the matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service.
Based on my experience — and the many similar reviews here — Nucleus appears to have serious governance and operational issues. Their explanation that they are experiencing “higher than normal volumes of enquiries” following the launch of their new platform on 9 February 2026 does not excuse the scale of the failures I have encountered.
I would strongly urge anyone considering using Nucleus to proceed with extreme caution.

Personally I don't find Nucleus helpful in trying to resolve queries. This is slightly frustrating when the problem was an error on their part and I had to speak to different people and keep explaining the issue. A little more effort would have gone a long way.

I get endless emails from Nucleus Platform telling me the same stuff every month. I wrote to the ceo and got a reply saying it was difficult as they had implemented the switch close to year end. Do the big retail companies make majot changes in the months coming up to Christmas? No, they plan ahead. I trust you with my money and you plainly can't plan ahead.
I have more irrelevant emails from your company than I do from 3 other platforms. Just sort yourselves out.
You don't deserve 1 star. And get a new ceo who can sort out this mess, I don't need limp responses without improvement.

Nicole was very helpful and made transferring our funds very easy.

It took the best part of 2 months to invest in my grandsons' JISAs. We moved to a non-advised basis but the process was totally uncoordinated with multiple requests for new forms to be completed.