Anybody with an experience of this kindly enlighten ... is the process smooth as the target broker claim and how long does it take?

easiest way out, sell all your shares, get them money buy back the shares through the new broker. however, you get charges broker fees for the sell and buy

Quite to the contrary, when I was moving from D&B to SBG Securities, the process was smooth. I only got to be asked to give feedback on why and I told them my uncut opinion on their customer service.

Selling shares and then buying them back with your new broker would be, in my opinion, a hefty price to pay for moving brokers.

Fill out the necessary paperwork and then be patient. Maximum time if my memory serves me right would be 3/4 weeks. You would be unable to trade at some point during the migration but lets face it... it's highly unlikely that there is someone who's never failed to trade over a certain 3/4 consecutive weeks.

Consolation would be better future service from your new stockbroker.

3/4 weeks? Consider yourself lucky... it took over 3 months to get my shares moved by the offending broker when I did it a few years ago. And I believe exposing my frustration and the broker responsible here in Wazua helped.

I still have access to D&B portal and compare the two from time to time. I see that D&B upgraded their system which has improved on the downtime. Much as SBG has issues, they are usually prompt in resolving. And when I have an issue, their customer service is available and prompt.