Moving a Roth IRA from one recordkeeper to another?

[Hedy]

My Roth has been with ING for the past two years, but I'm not thrilled about some of the changes coming from their change over to Sharebuilder. Therefore, I'm thinking about moving to Vanguard or Fidelity, as they seem to be the big names in the personal finance blogosphere. Any experience or thoughts?

[sweeps]

I can't speak to a rollover from ING specifically, but rolling over IRAs to Vanguard is a very easy process.

It's in Vanguard's and Fidelity's best interest to make sure the transfer happens quickly and to your satisfaction.

[Daylily]

We just transferred a traditional IRA belonging to my husband to Vanguard. We did the whole transfer online. You'll need a couple of things. You'll need to know which funds at Vanguard you want to move your money into. You'll need a quarterly or annual statement from your old trustee so that you will know the account numbers/fund numbers there. After that, we printed off the forms. Because the place we were transferring from required a medallion signature guarantee, we had to get that. Then we mailed the forms. Easy.

[Hedy]

I'm glad to hear it's easy.

[MonkeyMama]

You might need to get a medallion signature. (At a bank - best I can say it is kind of like a notary authorization that you are really you and you truly have the right to move money). It depends on the institution you are leaving. I think in general the brokerages require this to move money out, but I am not sure I have come across this in a bank. Then again, I think from my bank in the past I just took the distribution and re-deposited it. So banks may be the same. (Since my identity was breached it would almost scare me if any bank didn't require this though - it is a good thing).

Anyway, it would generally be on the application.