Broker comparison: cheap investment platforms UK

Snowmans spreadsheet is the ticket. I believe he did try to Google doc it but it wouldn’t work.

I edited it, as for my purposes regular investing calculations are key and its currently setup for a few one off purchases.

In this regard for SIPP’s HL seem generally come out on top up to about £50k, only because unlike practically every other provider they don’t have a fixed sipp account charge. After this the returns diminish in favour of others.

The Telegraph are putting together a campaign against unfair fees to transfer away from ISA’s / SIPPS. Something I’m sure Monevator would do if they had their clout. Lets hope in a few years time transfer is more akin to bank accounts.

Quick comment’s about the table: The post TA did where you summed up the ‘good for’ was incredibly useful I thought. At a glance you cold quickly see who seemed to come out on top. Maybe a bad for column could be good but the size is killing it already 😉

Personally I’m not moving until after the dust settles, although a complaint to HL to get a temporary max fee in the meantime might be a good idea.

Damian,

Relating to Charles Stanley specifically, they don’t charge a dealing fee on fund purchase and sale, they do charge a dealing fee on share, trust and ETF purchase and sale. Basically anything traded on a stock exchange is charged a £10 transaction fee. Their 0.25% platform fee applies to everything, however there are a few caveats. Firstly holding any shares, trusts or ETF’s will cost a minimum of £20 and a maximum of £150 – which can be reduced to £120 if you trade at least 6 times each 6 month period.

No such minimum or maximum fee applies to funds so no hard cap, that makes them cheap for smaller fund based portfolios and relatively expensive for much larger fund based portfolios because they have no tiered charging below £500K and the 0.15% above this amount is unlimited. For stocks and shares the £150 cap means you will pay £20 + the flat 0.25% platform charge of the value up to a level of £60K at which point the hard cap kicks in. It’s still not clear to me if the £20 minimum charge also incorporates the 0.25% charge for smaller amounts or is entirely additional.

Any exclusively stocks and shares based investment portfolio above £60K is effectively not being charged to hold anything above the £60K level on the platform. This can as you know be reduced to £120 p.a. if trading 6 times each 6 months which seems the obvious and only logical thing to do since 5 trades would cost £50 and still incur the full platform fee on top making it significantly more expensive exercise.

Hope that helps a little. I doubt this heaped plate full of platform charging spaghetti is what the RDR intended for paying retail customers though.

@Charlie – i am eating my hat – your are of course correct!

HL are good fur nut’in’.

Damian,

Basically if you only hold funds you will only pay a flat 0.25% of the valuation of your portfolio in platform fees up to £500K then a lower
rate of 0.15% on any amount above this threshold. Nothing else to pay at all.

If however you hold shares, IT’s, ETF’s etc. then you will pay a minimum of £20 regardless of how little the valuation is, so any value up to £8K
will incur a £20 platform fee until you get to exactly £8K at which point the £20 minimum becomes 0.25% of the value. Anything above £8K
means you’ll then pay a flat 0.25% until you get to a portfolio value of £60K at which point their £150 maximum (hard cap) kicks in. Anything
above £60K no matter how much higher will only ever be charged £150 (unless as already stated this is reduced to £120 by trading 6 times
each 6 months)

If you’re combining funds and shares then it gets a little more complicated to calculate the charge but the rules above apply to each
element.

Hope that’s a little clearer.

First off, I’d like to say that this website and especially this page is awesome. I have been lurking here for a while and am now making the jump in the DIY investing.

I am on the verge of opening a S&S ISA (for £5,700, as I’ve maxed out my Cash ISA allowance) before the year end as well as starting to invest some of my hard earned money (likely next year’s S&S allowance, likely the full £12k as Cash ISA rates are downright terrible at the moment). So, all in all, invest about £10-20k in the coming 3-4 months.

I would like to invest under one platform preferably to reduce admin shenanigans, but open to suggestions. I have gone through the above re: fees – I get the broader lines but it gets confusing especially when dealing with different classes of instruments (ETF/funds/shares).
I am looking to invest in shares to start with and then transfer to ETF and maybe funds when the time is right (a few months down the road). I would like to be able to invest in shares/ETFs outside of the UK (preferably North America, but also Continental Europe). I’d like to fill up my S&S allowances before moving to a regular trading account so brokers which have good ISA platforms are definitely recommended. Also, I am not sure how frequently I am going to invest, but likely a few times a months; I won’t be opening/closing positions within the same day (I am not going to be that active; works keeps me fairly busy).

Given the above, what platform would better suit my needs? As I said, I am open to split my investments in different platforms, but would only like to do so if benefits are tangible. I don’t mind paying slightly more in fees (though trying to optimise) if I can have access to a much better platform to invest from (from choice of securities to ease of use (mobile apps, customer service, etc.).

Many thanks,
D

Hi I have been lurking on this site for a long time, and an avid reader. I am most impressed by the table, but would like to ask for advice on the following:

Given that it is possible to hold US (and potentially other nationalities) shares in a SIPP and not suffer from withholding tax, and therefore place the other equities in a taxable account/ISA, is there anywhere that it is stated which brokers are able to process dividends from US shares with no deduction for withholding tax? (As opposed to the usual 15% deduction with a W-8BEN)

I have spoken to Hargreaves Lansdown and they have told me that they are able to process no dedeuctions, and I have read that TD and youinvest are able to process, whilst I have discussed with iWeb who have said that they can only handle 15%, whilst iii do not handle W-8BENs at all, so withholding tax is deducted at 30%.

If any other readers have any views I would be grateful as I see this as part of obtaining a low cost portfolio, both through platform charges AND tax!

After doing some calculations I found that including the HL exit fees, transferring to CS was cheapest for me over 2 years but iWeb was cheapest over 3+. With all the fee changes recently I just can’t shake the feeling that if I choose to go with iWeb, I will end up paying the larger upfront costs and then they will turn around and increase their fees. I’m a little wary of them because their pricing is a bit different from everyone else. These exit fees make it a pain as well, it’s difficult to shop around for the best deals when you need to pay every time you want to switch.

Has anyone else had luck getting HL to wave the exit fees?

I’ve only been with them for a year and if I transfer out now I will have paid them almost £50 just for 1 tracker fund. It feels like a huge rip off, but if I stay then the exit fees will be even higher down the road! That’s actually more an incentive for me to get out now than the small increase in annual fees.

just stumbled upon this:

https://www.vanguardlearning.co.uk/sites/default/files/additional-resources/UK%20Target-Allocation_FEB13.pdf

Reading this again just makes you want to just chuck everything into the 60/40 and blissfully ignore;)
now then what’s the best option for a 1 fund portfolio

I know its not the best place to put it but wasn’t sure where else to post it.

TrustNet Direct haven’t yet properly come forward with their offering so might be interesting to see how they tally up.

@ SNowman – Have you done a new spreadsheet including any of the new contenders?

@Geo – I was just about to say that we shouldn’t neglect Halifax for a one or two fund ISA with regular monthly investments. At £2-£4 a month, it offers a very similar price to the old HL index fund costs but with an additional £12.50 annual fee. They have more Vanguard funds now and will be updating their site to make them all available within an ISA.

I’m not sure if their “commission countdown” dealing discount covers funds or only shares, but it could provide for cheap one-off lump sum or selling opportunities.

One fund portfolios – just look at the good fund only options. It comes down to the size of your portfolio and how often you trade.

Daemon,

I don’t know whether you’re new to investing and apologise if not but generally I would expect most people with modest sums looking to invest it, tend to look at relatively low risk, cheap, diversified collective investments as a starting point i.e. index trackers, managed funds, investment trusts etc.

If you’re looking to get rich quick with shares I’d be very careful, on smaller sums the trading fees become disproportionate drag on performance and any success you might or might not have with that strategy in the short term will be down to pot luck, that’s not a good foundation for building a long term investment.

That said Youinvest does seem to be a good fit for the sort of investing you’re talking about, if you utilise the regular investing service and all other things considered.

Another new platform has opened its doors: http://www.strawberryinvest.com/strawberry-investor-direct-charges/
The website is quite attractive but the charges are nothing special. It doesn’t threaten any of the price champs in the table.

@ David – just had a chance to recheck Halifax’s new price schedule and it looks like their regular investment scheme stays. That could make their ISA £24 or so cheaper than iWeb on 12 purchases a year, assuming regular investment applies to the products you want. The more you sell, the more the gap closes as a Halifax sale is £7.50 a pop more expensive than iWeb’s. Ultimately, the gap between the two is wafer thin.

@ Tom – I don’t know but that sounds like a good idea in principle.

@ Vanguardfan:

Here’s part 1 in a mini series on ETFs vs index funds: http://monevator.com/buy-index-funds-for-simplicity/

Annual management charges don’t take into account a whole raft of charges that are covered by OCFs / TERs. Ignore AMCs, they are irrelevant.

OCFs / TERs are not total, additional costs (like trading fees) spill out via tracking error. Here’s some tracking error pieces:

http://monevator.com/tracking-error-–-a-hidden-cost/
http://monevator.com/choosing-a-tracker-using-tracking-difference/
http://monevator.com/how-to-use-tracking-error-to-uncover-the-true-cost-of-an-index-tracker/
http://monevator.com/tracking-error-how-to-measure-it/
http://monevator.com/check-tracking-error-bloomberg/

This piece links through to a series on choosing the best trackers:
http://monevator.com/how-to-choose-the-best-index-trackers/

I would happily buy a tracker from any of the main providers as long as it was super low cost, it tracked the index I require and the tracking error / difference checked out OK. In a tie-breaker I would go with Vanguard because their corporate culture is more orientated to their customers.

ok so here is my new brand neutral name…
Had a quick look through those links and have decided I definitely don’t have the time or requisite geekiness to properly compare the costs of the various trackers….and appreciate again the work you’ve done to get these ideas out there.

Reflecting on my behaviour further, I am aware I’ve developed a hierarchy of brand and product preferences which goes something like this: favour OEIC over ETF (but I need run ETF portfolios for some accounts due to charging structures). Fund manager ‘brand’ preference (based on that nebulous marketing concept ‘trust’) goes something like: 1. Vanguard 2. Blackrock/ishares 3. HSBC 4. L&G 5. Anything else (eg fidelity). I don’t really differentiate between different asset classes, I assume that ‘brands’ will tend to be good or bad across the board – this may be an erroneous assumption. This ’emotional’ preference does make me instantly suspicious of eg new Fidelity multi asset passive funds, and it would be better if I was actually able to make a rational comparison!

What I’ve actually got in my portfolios is mainly vanguard, with some ishares ETFs and some HSBC ETFs (which predate the vanguard product launch). Overall I’m aiming to reduce and simplify my portfolios, hence have been looking a little more closely at the choices in each asset class (although all I’ve done is basically compare TERs, which I know isn’t the full story).

I’m hoping that ultimately this will fall into the category of ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’ and I’ll be ok sticking as you say to the main providers providing low cost trackers. I’m aware that probably a bigger risk to my wealth is avoiding destructive behaviours like ‘buy high, sell low’ and unnecessary trading and tinkering – surprisingly hard to resist!

Great summary. Those wishing to use regular investing to cheaply purchase Vanguard ETFs using TD should be aware that the choice is restricted to just VUKE. It looks like you can buy all the other Vanguard funds as regular purchases at a £12-50 fee. I cannot find any other low TER ETFs purchaseable by regular investment on this platform despite promises from tech support to resolve the problems. Apologies if this has been previously noted, but I haven’t read all of the 400+ comments.

@Sandy

Link to the latest version of the platform spreadsheet v8 is

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxA6Przq6KI1aFdUYk55eE5mSW8/edit?usp=sharing

To download go to that link and choose ‘file’ and ‘download’

We are looking at making the spreadsheet more easily available via monevator.

@Accumulator (#428) … I’m the dullest and least interested passive investor possible. I buy and hold global funds predominantly. I rebalance by changing what I buy (and manage my wife’s investments which gives a little more flexibility here) rather than selling … lazy, possibly poor practice, but inexpensive. I’m fortunate to have bought some of the last rounds of NSI index linked bonds for stability.

I asked Halifax a few questions by email and they also confirmed the regular dealing fees. The only thing I’m waiting on is a response about frequency of changing the ‘target’ funds. I suspect this isn’t an issue. I’ve used up the back of a couple of envelopes and am pretty certain that someone with as boring an investment strategy as mine will probably be best served – in terms of fees – by Halifax.

I like the HL website (though this might be familiarity now) and have encouraged my kids to start their ISA savings there. However, I’m not prepared to pay a three figure sum for a well-designed website when everything I do is via a monthly standing order that only changes annually when they lift the ISA limit.

Great to see Lars Kroijer writing here … I suspect a disappointingly few HL customers will have read his first column or they’d be leaving in droves.
Keep up the excellent work.

In addition to the excellent broker table here on Monevator I can also recommend some tables that I stumbled across as mentioned in a recent Telegraph article. They are provided by a consultancy (The Lang Cat) and show the platform fees across all the major providers for both ISA and SIPPs at various portfolio sizes. Backs up a lot of what we have learnt from Monevator

http://langcatfinancial.co.uk/blog/

@Accumulator You mention that Axa self investor has high fees but I’m assuming you haven’t seen their recent announcement that their ISA and trading account platforms fees have been cut to 0.35% from 0.5% and they have kept their offer of no ISA fee at all until May 2015. This means they’re now cheaper than Fidelity, Hargreaves and Best Invest that you list. Having no exit fees means there’s no risk in giving them a try if prices fall elsewhere in the next year.

This is a fantastic table, with all info in one spot. I think my problem, though, is extracting from it the answers to my particular set up, and my current experience still leaves me puzzled about charge terminology. I have a fund-only investment wrapped in an ISA: Vanguard LS80, which I opened with TD in March 2013. I am positively passive as an investor, my time horizon is 30 years, with the only plan of using up the annual ISA allowance. I’m not interested in dealing in ETFs/shares, and I and have just about topped up the ISA with this year’s maximum allowance in 4 lump sum investments. The current market value of my ISA holding in this fund is greater than £35k. I thought I’d sit it out what with the proposed 0.35% platform fee by TD, due from August 2013, as it seems like the rest of the platform industry is in a state of flux and things haven’t settled yet. TD platform fee/charge is levied twice a year, to my knowledge, in January and August. As expected, TD informed me, by email sent 09.01.14, of what I was due to pay. What didn’t make sense was that on the day the fee was debited from my account (six days after the email notification), the exact same sum was rebated. The apparent result as it appears to me: zero in platform fees/charges. I daren’t question it in case it’s an error!

TD have updated their charges. Mostly relating to reducing fees for exit. Also a cap on the platform fee. Quite high still at £1,750. See the link below.

http://www.tddirectinvesting.co.uk/~/media/uk/pdf/rates-and-charges_feb_2014_updates.ashx

@Mark Polson (the lang cat)

Thanks for your kind comments. I love the style and independence of the Langcat blog and some really useful stuff there too. I particularly like the colour coding of the tables.

I’ve just done a comparison of the langcat ISA/SIPP tables with my spreadsheet, we agree in most places, but spotted the following differences

1. I had taken the Halifax ISA charge as £12.50 per quarter when of course it is £12.50pa (silly me) so I’ve amended for that
2. There were a couple of small errors with just my funds only table which I’ve corrected
3. Cavendish don’t currently offer a SIPP so should they be deleted from the langcat SIPP table (?)
4. I’ve taken the Halifax and iweb SIPP account charge (e.g. £75pa) to be subject to VAT (so e.g. £90pa) as per the monevator table above (it just says VAT in addition the Halifax website which is what I had gone off). You may have more info that it is not VATable.
5. I come up with different figures for TD Direct SIPP charges at 20K and 50K. I come up with £170 (= £100 + £70) and £405 (= 240 + £175). It seems to be where I think the 0.5% element of the charge is between the £96 pa min and £240 pa max where we differ
6. We get different answers at the Fidelity 250K cliff edge (because I am at the bottom of the cliff and you at the top or is it the other way round)

I’ve updated the spreadsheet to correct for 1. and 2. and to incorporate the new TD charge changes (0.35%pa fund charge capped at £1,750pa per account from 14th Feb) and £35 per investment re-registration charge reduced to £25.

Version 9 of the spreadsheet can be downloaded from

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxA6Przq6KI1QTRHMmtQcjRVMVU/edit?usp=sharing

and choose File then Download.

If you spot errors in the spreadsheet (there must be some more hiding in there) would be really useful if you could let me know.

I opened a SIPP account with HL many years as at that time it was a market leader. I followed up by consolidating several ISA accounts into a single HL ISA, and also linking in accounts for my partner and son which I also manage on their behalf. I invest passively in tracker funds and ETFs in all these accounts, with trading limited to drip feeding and occasional rebalancing, and my choice of funds is mainly determined by cost. So I had put a lot of eggs into the HL basket.
I have been following developments with interest as the impact of RDR has evolved over the past few months. When HL exposed it’s hand I discovered that the estimated impact it would have on my portfolio and those of my partner and son was to increase costs by 5-6 times!
So with the help of your invaluable table I looked around for alternatives, deciding that Interactive Investor was my best option (the discount for regular dealing and the one charge for multiple accounts being a particular cost saver). I estimated that my overall charges with iii would be less than pre RDR charges with HL. So I set about opening the new iii accounts and sent off the forms requesting the transfer of funds.
The main reason for this post is to let fellow readers know about HL’s response to my request to move our investments. After several phone calls I had an offer from HL to cap all charges and dealing fees to £5oo across all accounts for each individual. It’s a huge discount on their new standard charges, 35-40% of my estimated total charge. Unfortunately for them I won’t be staying as it’s still not competitive compared to rivals (despite their other carrot of “super low cost” trackers exclusive to HL which are due to be announced next month – TERs under 0.1%)
In short if you are a current HL user don’t accept their new charges at face value. You may have to show intent to leave (by requesting a transfer) rather than just threaten to do so to get the best deal.
Hope you get offered a better deal than me!

Hi Steve (@ the lang cat)

Great to hear from you.

I think your approach on the Fidelity 250K cliff edge is spot on. Someone invested at that level probably has the capability to monitor the cliff edge and make sure they are on the right side of it. In reality no portfolio is static at a round number. Someone with 250K with Fidelity in funds would normally have much cheaper alternatives in Interactive Investor and ATS so it is pretty academic in any case. There are a few other cliff edges in the various charging structures (e.g. the Youinvest, Halifax and iweb SIPP account charges, TD Direct with their fixed account fee waiver criteria and Charles Stanley with their share account waiver if 6 trades in a 6 month period).

Would be extremely grateful for feedback on the errors in the spreadsheet you find. I’ve tried to accurately understand how charges work where there are investments are spread across dealing accounts, ISAs and SIPPs and where there are mixes of funds and shares/ETFs. But I have to realistic though about my ability to accurately code everything in though and to test.

Best wishes

Snowman

Trying to check the costs of taking maximum income from that ISA (without losing it to management fees), I couldn’t verify the 0.25% rates used in both this table and Langcat’s from Charles Stanley’s own website. Where did you get it, guys?
I may well be missing something but, when the only figure they quote under “Charges” there is 0.75% +VAT per annum, I wonder where that 0.25% (and the £150 cap) came from….

@DianaW

You can verify the Charles Stanley charges via this link

https://www.charles-stanley-direct.co.uk/What_We_Charge#charges-2

Certainly not with that turn of speed!
Sorry, all, for getting the wrong CS site: the constant migraine isn’t making this horrid week any easier.

@DianaW

Are you saying II is the parent of Charles Stanley, or am I misunderstanding? I’m pretty sure they are not linked. They might both be using Cofunds as the underlying platform (I’m not sure), but they are not owned by Cofunds.

Diana,

Charles Stanley Direct have the option to pay away dividends to your nominated bank account, automatically reinvest monthly (a defined amount) or to simply hold as cash on account for ad hoc use.

Thanks, John.
I knew that question must be just too elementary for all you financial whiz-kids out there – or it would have made the tables, wouldn’t it?

@Jonny – That was the same conclusion I came to. Halifax works out pretty good for that scenario. I was going to transfer myself until I realised II would hold my SIPP and ISA for just the price of holding the SIPP £144/pa).

…plus 0.45% platform fee, of course. So, effective TER 0.57-0.62%.

A point not covered in this invaluable spreadsheet is the usability of the web interface to the various providers. As a long-time HL customer I’ve got used to their system and think it’s generally pretty good. However, their 0.45% platform fee is going to hammer my annual costs so I’m moving … to Halifax. In contrast, the Halifax web interface is a bit of a shambles and I’m having to contact their customer relations for most of the information I need. For example, when trying to setup regular investments to my ISA with Vanguard funds a search for ‘Vanguard’ returns 11 funds, whereas their fund research pages list 24 offerings, all of which can be held in an ISA wrapper. Odd.

To complicate things further their customer services (which, I should add, always reply very promptly) have confirmed that SWIP FTSE All Share Foundation Growth B (ISIN GB00B76B9Y24) can be transferred from HL and held within an ISA, despite the fact I can find no mention of them in the Halifax Fund Research. Odd.

The functionality of the HL website isn’t worth 0.45% but it is something I’m going to miss.

@SteveB

It may be true that the new HL arrangements mean you are better off than before, as a HL customer. But that does not mean that there is no reason not to leave HL. You might be considerably more better off if you switched to a different platform, depending on the size of your portfolio and a range of other factors. I would be thousands of pounds worse off if I switched to HL, for instance. You need to work out your own comparison.

The new HL ‘core funds’ are not enough to compensate for 0.45% platform fee, so new investors should look elsewhere. It might be enough to tempt existing HL customers to stay for a while – particularly those like me with a small SIPP where HL are fairly competitive (though bested by BestInvest).

But will buying Blackrock class H or L&G class C make it more difficult to change platform in the future? Presumably most other platforms won’t stock them meaning I’d have to sell before transfer. Or would they let you hold but not add to them?

@David – Halifax have only recently added a bunch of Vanguard funds to their system. When I called the other week, they said they were still updating their systems (especially since some funds were not showing as available within an ISA).

You do have a point about the interfaces on offer though. Moving from HL to II, I was surprised to learn I have to fill in a paper form to make SIPP contributions.

@DianaW – The paper form I am referring to is required whenever you want to make a contribution to the II SIPP. The process is to complete and post a form stating how much you want to contribute, then transfer cash to a bank account they set up for you. Once they have processed the paper form and received the cash in the bank account, they make the money available on their site so you can invest it accordingly. You can also use the form to setup direct debit contributions, though it costs £10 per trade, not the £1.50 for regular investments like on the ISA/trading account.

The HL SIPP is a whole lot easier to manage (just an online purchase via a debit card). Still, it also works out a lot more expensive for me personally.

CisforV
That is a surprise: thanks for the detailed heads-up. Makes it much harder to use up SIPP entitlement with any certainty at the very end of a tax year, which must be a disadvantage.
Is it just the SIPP that’s run this very clunky way, or do II do this for ISA contributions too?

So II isn’t just sub-contracting the transfer of the SIPP from another provider, as implied by the authorisation to The Lifetime SIPP Company Limited in their transfer form, but the entire management of any SIPP notionally held through II. And then this Lifetime SIPP lot sub-contract all the day-to-day management back to own parent, Hartley SAS. Not much wonder there’s a time-consumingly indirect procedure for getting contributions through.
It rather explains why II have a flat-rate annual charge for having one’s SIPP with them, although not why they then don’t charge their usual fees for also holding ISA and trading accounts with II itself.
No marks to II for failing to disclose all this up front.

@DianaW

I haven’t look in depth at what The Lifetime SIPP company does. I assumed they ran the SIPP, but you might be right that they are just doing the transfer.

Two Q’s on Halifax.

Do the figures listed reflect a post RDR charging strategy. (i.e. I know that there are no guarantees – but can I expect that any changes for 2014 at least are taken care of!)?

Am I right in the fact that the interface they use is the same as the old II interface (that is II used to use Halifax)? If so then I remember it being clunky – but still useable (hell it’s what I started on).

@avfc1982 – I’m glad you queried that. I just called them again to confirm and you are correct (the person I spoke to previously did have to check with a colleague a few times, so may not have fully understood what I was asking).

II did just confirm that you can use the paper form to make one-off or regular cash deposits to the bank account. It takes 5-7 days to process, but is then available in the II site to do with as you wish. Which includes setting up a regular investment at £1.50 per trade to be conducted on the 23rd of the month. You can even set this up and cancel it for the next month (in effect a one-off investment, so long as you don’t mind buying on the 23rd).

The standard tax relief should appear as cash on their site after about six weeks, and you could setup another regular investment using that cash.

This made me chuckle: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=64885759&postcount=562 🙂

@Jonny

Love it!

You should consider adding James Hay’s new product to your tables? They offer a hybrid of fixed fee and % and one of the widest range of investment available anywhere. Fixed fee is £195 p.a but % charges start at 0.18% and go down to 0.05% so compare well on larger portfolios.

WHY DOES ANYONE BOTHER WITH FUNDS, JUST SELL AND BUY ETFS OR INVESTMENT TRUSTS, ALTHOUGH WITH INV TRUSTS YOU PAY STAMP DUTY, BUT”ETFS THERE IS NO STAMP DUTY.
I JUST MOVED TO BARCLAYS WITH A LARGE ETF PORTFOLIO AND ONLY PAY £36 PER YEAR FEE.

HOW DO YOU ALL THINK HARGREAVES BECOME A BILLIONAIRE, ONLY BY CREAMING OFF FROM THE FEES, NOW THAT GRAVY TRAIN STOPPED HE HAS TO MILK IT FROM OTHER WAYS AND TO BE TRANSPARENT ON THE TRUE COST TO THE INVESTOR
DONT FORGET SELL FUNDS AND BUY ETFS WITH A FIXED FEE PLATFORM

http://i.imgur.com/1n8Ooh7.gif

Agreed – it’s rude not to explain why you are being what anyone else would perceive as rude… I don’t think we’ll miss your advice.

It may or may not interest you to know that I do have to think about disability, every minute of every day, I also happen to think about how I’m being perceived by others and try to act accordingly.

My advice, since that’s what we’re supposed to be talking about, would be to go and find something better to do.

All
I would be grateful for any comments/suggestions on the following (not sure this is the place but has the ‘forum’ still to unveiled?)

Age 45
Investment timespan 10 years
Regular monthly investing in an ISA, £960 per month
ISA provider – considering Interactive Investor

Portfolio

• Blackrock UK Equity Tracker D (30%, or £288 per month)
• Aberforth Smaller Companies IT (20%) (not sure this is possible, actually; have emailed II)
• Vanguard FTSE Dev World ex UK Equity Index (20%)
• Blackrock Emerging Markets Equity Tracker Fund D (10%)
• Ishares Global Water (10%)
• Vanguard UK inflation linked gilt index fund (10%)

So, 6 purchases a month @ £1.50 = £9, or 0.94% of gross investment. Each quarter = £27.00

The II £20 quarter fee / “first £20 worth of trades free every quarter” would mean net cost is £7.00. £28.00 p.a. This is just 0.2% of quarter amount contributed.

I am very much a novice, and have gleaned all the above from this site. So, firstly, thank you, and secondly, any constructive comments on how to improve the portfolio, provider or any glaring mistakes would be great.

@TheSlowHare

One option I’d consider, if cost is a major factor, is somewhere like Charles Stanley for the first year at least. No fund purchase, sale, switch or additional account fees and a flat platform charge of 0.25% of the investment balance charged six monthly in arrears.

Then in a years time the platform charges landscape may have changed further, at which point we’ll all hopefully have a much better idea of which is best.

You didn’t mention an initial lump sum which led me to suggest the above.

Hope that helps.

Hi
Can anyone give any feedback on the use of either CS Direct or Cavendish online for small fund only ISA portfolios? I am looking at these for JISAs for my kids. Specifically I am wondering about a) how charges are levied (if I have only acc units for eg are units sold and from which holdings?) And b) if I opt for income units what are the options for reinvesting – is there a minimum trade size? I am quite keen to have income units simply so that I can show the kids what income is being generated and how it differs from capital growth; I’d could reinvest
As far as I can see the charges are identical except that Cavendish don’t charge exit fees (which to my mind, makes them the best buy for small fund only portfolios) but on the other hand they don’t do Vanguard funds so I’d be using L&G and HSBC (I don’t think the Blackrock trackers come in income units).
My plan is a 5 fund portfolio, gilts/ILgilts/dev world ex UK/UK/EM with %split something like 15/15/40/20/10.

I agree – for kids ISA a Vanguard Lifestrategy 100% Equity Acc offers great diversification in one very cost effective fund – even more so now they have tweaked the asset allocation slightly to give greater global exposure. Best place will largely depend on the account size and if just starting out there is not much between the main brokers. For me the option to invest regularly is important. Actually with Hargreaves for my kids ISAs. While much has been said about the new account fee of 45bps it’s actually become a lot cheaper to hold the Vanguard funds now ghost they have ditched he £2 per month platform fee, particularly if your account is currently sub £1,000 (previously this platform fee equated to an almost 4% per year in fees per fund). Once the account is more sizable I’ll probably shop around but be mindful of exit fees etc which may wipe out any gains you might make by switching to a marginally cheaper platform

Trustnet Direct is live. All the details of charges here: https://trustnetdirect.com/account-charges

Looks as if Trustnet Direct is subcontracting to the same SIPP administration scheme as II.

1. Barclays have reduced their share and ETF SIPP account fee from £240pa to £186pa

https://www.barclaysstockbrokers.co.uk/Pages/price-changes.aspx

2. Trustnet Direct charges summarised at

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=64110323&postcount=1

Matt, II (like some other platforms) farm out their SIPP administration to another company – see earlier posts in this thread – for a fixed fee. That lot (The Lifetime SIPP Company Limited) does the SIPP transfer too – as you’ll see from the authority on the last page of their SIPP transfer form – hence the additional SIPP transfer fee.
It sounds as if II doesn’t touch the SIPP at all, except for passing on the effect of the trades you make into and within it.
So II will want to be able to fund those fixed fees (and any additional costs, such as trading fees on your SIPP investments) by taking money via your compulsory trading account with them, which they run directly. Giving their subcontractor the right to take fees directly from the SIPP would be impracticable for II to monitor and control.

@Matt – I can’t find the SIPP details, but HL do the same for their ISA. They first check for cash in the ISA account, then the standard shares account and then reserve the right to sell holdings to recover costs. Personally, I’d much rather leave some cash in the standard shares account and use that to cover fees, then allow every penny I put into a capped ISA or SIPP to be invested. I think II also take from a nominated bank account before selling holdings too which is good.

@CisforV

HL take the SIPP fees directly from the SIPP account (if cash is available). Or at least they always have to date.

This is IMHO best, as it means getting the tax relief on my money that pays the SIPP fees, rather than having to pay the after tax amount on them.

@CisforV I think it’s a different calculation with ISAs than SIPPs, because you’re much more likely to hit up against the cap. I would be delighted to be hitting the annual allowance with my SIPP, but it’s not going to happen anytime soon! And it makes such a huge difference – effectively rather than a pre-tax cost of £144 pa, I would have a pre-tax cost of around £240pa, just for the admin charge! I appreciate the “behind the scenese” reasoning @DianaW, but when it makes such a huge difference to the running costs I’ll look elsewhere.

I don’t know why I hadn’t considered the Cavendish offering, but actually it looks perfect (subject to fund range), and I agree with @vanguardfan that the absence of exit fees is a big plus.

@Matt – yes I did say that it would have to be non-Vanguard with Cavendish. But TA assures me that other major index tracker providers (HSBC, Blackrock, L&G) are fine so I am trying not to be too emotionally brand attached…all other things being equal I would prefer Vanguard but it just seems that for this particular purpose for me, CSD will be more complicated than I need.
Its probably all (relatively) small stuff anyway – we should try not to make the perfect be the enemy of the good…
But totally with you on it being way more complicated than it should be! I suppose that’s the flip side of choice and competition – too much blooming complexity!

Monevator is a terrific website and I am grateful to the Telegraph for mentioning it in an article the other week and bringing it to my attention – it brought a new clarity to my thinking about investing.

My Share ISA’s total about £65,000 are with Bestinvest who have informed me they are shortly to charge me 0.40% (if I move my ISA Funds from Co-funds to their own platform) or 0.45% if I stay on the Cofunds Platform. I have spoken with them but they politely inform that 0.4% is what they charge.

Monevator’s table of platform fees and advice encourage me to liquidise my Bestinvest ISA holding and shift to Alliance Trust or possibly iWEb and buy a new set of lower cost Funds with a lower cost platform.

I have been with Bestinvest for quite a while and their service has been excellent, and their research and recommendations in the past have seemed excellent. This makes me reluctant to change the habits of many years.

I am now in my mid seventies and take a somewhat more cautious attitude to investing, and so I am finding it emotionally difficult to make the jump, though I know I have to take advantage of the lower cost platforms now available. My financial objective is to keep the share ISA’s as a”rainy day pot” over the next 10-15 years (assuming I am spared that long) and to grow the value of the Funds over this time period.

Any comments about how any of the above flat fee brokers are in real life will be gratefully received.

@Matt – I wondered the same thing re where SIPP fees are taken from at II so I emailed them and they said this:

“I can confirm that the £120 plus VAT administration fee for your SIPP account is taken up front for the first year and then quarterly for any year after that. In the first year we will take the fee upfront from your first contribution or transfer into your account. For the following year’s fee we will take this quarterly on the first Saturday in January, April, July and October. We would always try to take the fee from your cash balance in your SIPP account but if there is no balance available then we will try to take this from your debit card which will be registered on your account.”

So you just need to make sure you’ve got a small cash balance in there that they will deduct fees from – I’m doing this by holding one of my funds as income units (currently transferring from HL to II).

All very well for anyone who’s trying to minimise their income tax bill but, for non-taxpayers, surely it’s the other way around.
I don’t want any platform provider to take fees out of my limited ISA or SIPP contributions, which reduces the tax-effective amount in those, but to use cash from my bank account (or any cash in a taxable trading account).

@Diane

It’s my understanding (and experience) that any account fees taken from a tax free ISA wrapper can be recovered by an additional contribution over and above the allowance which restores the net contribution made and the tax free balance lost to fees.

I don’t have a SIPP so can’t say for certain the same rule applies there.

John/Diane

In practice, most people will not exceed the SIPP tax relief limit, because it is the lower of your entire net relevant earnings and £50k. So, if you want a certain amount to be invested in the SIPP and the account fees will be taken out of the SIPP, you can certainly just make an extra tax-relieved contribution to your SIPP to cover any account fees. (There is of course no limit to what you can contribute to a SIPP; the limit relates to the amount on which you can claim tax relief.)

John, it is only relevant for those who have contributed their entire earnings (or £50k, if lower), but are you speculating that the SIPP tax relief limit is effectively lifted by the amount of the account fee? I’d be surprised, but I wasn’t aware you can do that for ISAs, so who knows?

I know nothing beyond the basics about SIPPs but what you say makes sense, unless there’s some mechanism applied by the broker to discount any double dip tax relief on contributions made to cover fees.

I can assure you though, fees levied within ISA accounts, where the annual allowance has already been fully utilised can also receive additional contribution(s) to cover those fee(s). I’d assume that applies to sums below the allowance too but can’t verify that first hand.

Hi all,

Can I ask for a sanity check as I’m looking at using a broker for the first time. I currently have a 3 tracker ISAs with L&G -total £15k. I am looking to plan ahead for the next 15 years plus. Knowing myself and being honest about how much time and effort I will put into rebalancing and researching I have opted for a vanguard lifestyle fund.

I plan to contribute approx £800 -1000 per month.

Could I ask
From the great information above and reading the comments I think the best option currently for me is Charles Stanley direct. Does this sound like a sensible reading of the info
Also I can see no value in transferring in my existing stand alone L&G ISA or am I missing some potential benefit from doing so

Many thanks

MBLT

@William

HL compare favourably? If you mean for non-fund portfolios then I would agree they are not outrageous. You refer to the langcat tables, which relate to funds. For funds, HL only compare favourably for small portfolios.

Well, it really depends on your definition of competitive. You can still get a better deal at Youinvest or Interactive Investor on ETF portfolios. I wouldn’t want to pay £11.95 every time I need to trade. I don’t blame you for being slow to pull the trigger though. I agree more moves are likely. Take a look at VWRL for a Vanguard ETF that does much the same job as Vanguard LifeStrategy 100. VGOV would provide the government bond allocation.

@ The Accumulator
I’ve just seen the offering from Trustnet. I would welcome your comments.
RDR has led to my reviewing my personal pension provision – currently a HL SIPP – Vanguard Lifestrategy 60% Acc. I would welcome both your(Accumulator/Monevator) comments on the merits of investing in Foreign and Colonial Investment Trust using a platform(s) and/or investing via the F&C Pension Plan. RDR and the industry’s response charges wise has thrown existing plans up in the air. Obviously I and many readers of this blog were very fortunate with HL’s previous £2 monthly charge on Vanguard funds. My assessment is that the F&C Pension plan charges compare favourably with HL SIPP charges. Still awaiting confirmation from HL on which 30 x investment trusts benefit from their regular £1.50 fee.

@Snowman,

Can you supply a link to your excellent comparison spreadsheet. I previously used a link to Version 9 but this is no longer available. Thanks.

Hi,

Not sure if I read this earlier up, but just wanted to quickly run it past your good selves 🙂 . If I find a broker I like, and want to invest a portfolio bigger than the £50,000 covered by the FSCA, is it a problem to do this? From my understanding the broker’s don’t hold my money or my shares, the companies / ETFs do, so if the broker were to crumble I would be ok and my money safe?

It’s just that before I was splitting my portfolio over several brokers, investing in funds, I now want to switch to ETFs due to the rate increases. Fidelity was fantastic for monitoring capital gains – however they charge a platform fee for ETFs. TDW don’t however their interface is horrendous to use. So I was thinking about picking a nice broker but was worried about having my eggs all in one basket so to speak. Should I have anything to worry about?

Cheers!!

@Kanine

re anything to worry about, an unusually good DT article here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/10698379/What-happens-if-your-Isa-firm-goes-bust.html

Only the freedom to try any kind of investment that would take you deeper into HL’s charging zone, Bob.
It had escaped me until I read these last dozen comments that it was the nature of my investments which governed whether HL made an overt mint out of my savings under their new rules – and that’s one complication too many for this very amateur investor. Having had the freedom to choose how to reinvest before moving away to another platform and discovering in the process how much better I could do, away from HL’s pet investment choices, I wouldn’t like to be without that freedom in future.
Thanks to Ivan for mentioning that very timely article in the Telegraph about financial security, by the way.

@Snowman,

I made an attempt at re-drafting your famous spreadsheet – here is the download link:
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=9CE8ECAB8B65DC03!1163&authkey=!ACBsOtmIP-NWKuY&ithint=file%2c.xlsx

The substance is the same as yours, but I have re-organised the workbook and calculation structure.
It’s still in an early draft form and there may be errors and I’m not sure if you will find it any more useful than your version.
(It did take a long time to do this even though I was copying so much of what you had already done. Thank you for the huge amount of effort it must have taken for you to build and maintain it!)

Thanks circledchicken. Some excellent suggestions for improving the layout of the platform comparison spreadsheet.

There are some changes in structure which for practical reasons I won’t be able to incorporate (even though they are good suggestions) , but others like the first sheet acting as an index I will look to incorporate into later versions.

Interesting – but their press release doesn’t explain why. If they don’t have to charge VAT on their platform fees, why should any competitor do so either?

Thanks, Snowman.
I recalled that from previous discussion of the ATS case but noticed that they weren’t the only platform including VAT on various charges. Rather obviously, II add VAT to their SIPP charges, which are what anyone with both a SIPP and trading/ISA accounts there will pay, presumably to collect the VAT charged to them by their SIPP administrators (The Lifetime SIPP Co Ltd).
I can’t see anything in the sensible analysis at http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/news-and-analysis/wrap-and-technology/hmrc-rolls-back-over-vat-on-platform-charges/2006221.article to indicate that II’s (and others’) SIPP administrators’ fees should be liable to VAT, as they provide the custody part of the arrangement (while II does the execution of trades etc) – not individual advice etc.
Doesn’t II follow this stuff as well as ATS? Or has II just not bothered to ask HMRC to relieve it of the need to charge this VAT too? If the VAT isn’t chargeable, then there’s a mess in the making if II (and others) continue to do so, regardless of this very clear guidance (which was due to become final by the start of this month).

Thanks, Mark.
Especially since reading through all II’s SIPP small print yesterday, it’s more that II provides the SIPP wrapper as an administrative service, while all the real work of managing the SIPP is done by Lifetime et al. (II collects the fees and provides the facility to trade in the SIPP, plus the general information and research etc.) I can see Lifetime billing II for that work and charging VAT on it, so that II would want to pass the charge on to the individual investor in order to recover the VAT they’ve paid – just as a solicitor’s bill to the lay client passes on the VAT from a barrister’s fee-note, but the difference is that the barrister’s work attracts VAT. The analysis of the draft guidance doesn’t seem to let the actual work that Lifetime does, attract VAT….
Being about to pay SIPP charges to II for the first time, I’ve now asked II to clarify – citing the Moneymarketing articles on ATS and the draft guidance (anyone know if it’s actually been made final yet?), so let’s see how they respond.

@ Bob. I think the letter doing the rounds is in a post somewhere but i had the post flagged so here’s a copy:

I just put mine in the secure message service

————————————————————————————————————————

Senior Client Services Manager
Hargreaves Lansdown
One College Square South
Anchor Road
Bristol
BS1 5HL

Dear Sir/Madam

OFFICIAL COMPLAINT – Refusal to Waive Exit Charges Following Unilateral Charge Increases

Please accept this letter as a formal complaint that you are refusing to allow me to exit freely from my Hargreaves Lansdown accounts following your unilateral increase in charges. (The new charges include a new fee for receiving half yearly paper statements, a new account closure fee, a new fee on cash transfers to another provider and a new fee for probate valuations. And that is only some of them.)

As a result of your new charges I believe I will be materially worse off, now and in the future, and I am therefore going to transfer my investments to another provider. I also object to the increase exit charges that will apply in future and the increased charges that will apply in respect of a probate valuation. Since the reason I wish to transfer is due to your unilateral variation of the contract I do not believe it is fair to expect me to pay any exit charges. This is because I believe it is unfair only offering me two unacceptable options i.e. to either (1) accept charges I would never have originally agreed to, or (2) pay to avoid these changes. Neither option is reasonable. To be reasonable you also need to offer either (a) the option to continue the contract on the current charges or (b) the opportunity to exit without charge.

I further believe that by denying me an opportunity to exit free of charge your unilateral increase in charges is not just unfair but also contrary to FSA and OFT guidance.

I also do not believe these new charges are required by regulation. But even if they were I believe it is still against OFT and FCA guidance to increase your charges without giving customers the option to exit freely. (See for example section 12.4 of the OFT’s “Guidance for the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999” published in September 2008. This highlights that a valid reason for varying a contract, such as a regulatory change, is NOT sufficient for a price change to be fair. Consumers must also be given the chance to cancel freely.)

Please agree to refund or waive all my exit and transfer fees and agree not to levy any of the new charges during the period the transfer is taking place. If you do not agree to this then please confirm that I can take my complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Please do not telephone me about this matter. For evidence purposes I wish all communication to be in writing.

Yours …

Bob, I started from that draft too but thought that HL would probably recognise it from having received it from too many other people already, so I borrowed the ideas, looked up the OFT guidance citation and added some excoriating remarks about how misleading their standard announcement letter and its enclosures had been. (To my subsequent fury, I’d swallowed that at face value, back in January, so it clearly did what it was supposed to do – mislead me!) The shape of the letter will have been similar but it sounded like me talking, not someone on the MoneySaving site where it originated (the original link is way back up this thread somewhere).
HL’s response was obviously standard form, in two pages – the first all self-justifying and defensive (with a very distinct flavour of their own lawyers talking), the second (conveniently) conceded the waiver.
It probably helped that I’d originally discovered the problem and asked for a waiver (obviously far too mildly) by telephone a few days before their old charges expired at the end of February. I e-mailed them that night but the waiver letter was posted and took four days to arrive, reaching me on 28th February. It allowed me until 31st March to get transfer forms delivered to them – which II will take some time to achieve, particularly for the SIPP (allow at least a week). Getting a waiver now that HL is into its new charging format may well be harder after all this publicity.
Good luck with it!

Kevin, it sounds as if HL may have lost the tax-free status of that ISA, then.
Did you keep a copy of the transfer form, to ensure that you had the evidence to prove they’d failed to follow your instructions?

David, HL’s letter to me was officially dated the day after I sent in my complaint to them but took three days to arrive by first-class post.
HL isn’t obliged to waive the new charging regime and, the more effective the complaint, the more likely it is to succeed in achieving a waiver now.
The letter that one complainant used successfully letter isn’t a prescription entitling a further customer to the same treatment, particularly as the circumstances have since changed: anyone only complaining now has already become subject to the new regime, as well as having notionally had two months to realise its effect on them personally. Speed of response to a unilateral change of contractual terms is always relevant.
Ideally, it shouldn’t matter if HL had seen the wording before but, given that Bob had asked for tips and that the new regime has come into effect, my instinct is always to tailor-make a complaint rather than to use a standard form letter – particularly where that letter wasn’t particularly well expressed in places. Individual considerations are always important, in addition to any factor that seems to have been relevant before the new regime began; after all, no one outside HL knows exactly which element of the first successful complaint was the deciding factor in getting that angry customer his waiver.

1) Generally if you wanted to switch from fund X to fund Y, you would sell fund X and purchase fund Y. The platform generally levies a cost to trade, so you’d pay that twice (1 x sale, 1 x buy). All of this happens inside the ISA wrapper, so you’re protected from CGT, etc.

2) I believe Charles Stanley is recommended as being the best for people starting out because for small fund-only portfolios (which is what someone new will generally go for) their percentage-based fees are less than the best fixed-fee platform until your total assets get to about £32k. Cavendish Online is more or less a front end for the Fidelity Fundsnetwork, I believe, which means that the choice of funds is restricted relative to other platforms (no Vanguard funds, for example).

3) It’s usually easy. Of course, you will pay a trading cost to sell each of your holdings, but transferring the money out is normally just a bank transfer into your account.

A question of my own: How is Bestinvest’s SIPP platform to use? I am thinking about transferring an occupational pension pot into a SIPP and I was considering Interactive Investor, but tales above of using paper forms to do things put me off.

Table updated with Trustnet Direct and a few other minor changes. The best buys are unaffected.

@ Youngun – not much to choose between Cavendish and CSD. CSD is more versatile in terms of ETFs and Vanguard funds and would therefore be my choice. Generally chasing performance by swapping between funds on a regular basis is a way to earn sub-standard returns and jack up your costs. Better to choose a diversified portfolio of index trackers and stick with it through thick and thin.

@ Schemie – I don’t know of any quick way to do this bar trawling through the websites / emailing. Bear in mind Interactive Investor give you £20 worth of free trades a month. Agree that unless there are close substitutes then I would pick ETFs on the basis of the job they will do for me rather than access to regular investment fees. I wouldn’t buy each ETF at full price every month though. Would be more likely to buy ETF 1 this month, then ETF 2 the next month and ETF 3 the month after that.

Hey guys,

For sharedealing, does anyone know who is the cheapest when it comes to dividend reinvestment?

Thanks.

Great table and information as always. For what it’s worth, I just wanted to get people’s views on various brokers as I am trying to choose a new one, just not on cost, but user interface. Bonkers as it may seem, if it takes 10x as long to administrate I might well just pay the extra money for the time and stress saved…

I’m currently looking for a share broker that will:
Not carry any platform fees for ETFs
A portfolio bigger than 60k.
Have a regular low cost £1.50-£2 investing charge (Weekly ideally)
Have an easy to use interface that makes buying and selling short and sweet.
Not have gigantic leaving costs for ISAs (as I have a large ISA portfolio to transfer too).

Here’s my 2p regarding the ones I use: TDW, Fidelity (leaving them due to high platform charges) and Motley Fool Sharedealing / Halifax. I have recently joined Interactive Investor so will let you know how I feel about that.

The best: (sadly) Fidelity – interface fantastic – easy to use, easy to buy multiple funds in a single click (so you’re not going back and forth repeating yourself) and even easier to sell multiple funds (which makes end of year crystallising gains so much less laborious). Tells you a running total of realised and unrealised gains so superb for calculating how much you need to sell for CGT purpose. Shame about the 0.35 % platform fee.

The worst: TDW. Everything is terrible terrible terrible about the handling of this. And it doesn’t work 100% with Mac users / Safari either. Torturous to buy or sell multiple holdings (2 pages to click through every single transaction). Data disorganised and no CG reporting. Only good as no ISA charge above a few thousand (? £5k maybe ?) Took me ages to crystallise a handful of trackers.

Motley Fool – only really used them for individual shares. Good range of dates for purchases for regular transactions (4x a month) at £2. Interface – pretty good. Not as good as fidelity but a lot of great information here to help you keep track of purchases. Only thing holding me back transferring an ISA full of ETFs to them is the high cost of exit (exit fee + individual share fee too) whereas TDW only charge you a single set exit charge.

Any suggestions? Maybe III may be the way to go but I haven’t had a chance to play yet.

After calling up TDW for a separate support issue, they also said there is no longer and exit fee for shares ISAs. So if I were to get rid/transfer my fund only ISA it is completely free.

Anyone else struggling to get Alliance to release ISA’s? It’s now approaching two months since my new broker wrote to them. They’ve written three or four times since then (they helpfully – and wastefully – send me a first class letter every time they do this). I wrote to complain to Alliance and got a response that they were ‘currently working through a backlog’ (three weeks ago). In my view this is extremely poor service. Since I originally submitted the transfer request when they were waiving fees I suspect it means people are leaving in droves (or their back office is just plain rubbish of course).

@Kanine … you’re spot-on about the TDW interface. A total dog when using Safari on a Mac. Most information is invisible unless you switch to Chrome. It’s not a big deal to determine the client browser and prevent any sort of access … ideally during the application process for an account to avoid future frustration.

@DianaW … I’d checked for ‘compatibility’. All is OK. A vanilla Vanguard portfolio to be transferred. The problem is that the old broker has not yet responded at all to the request. We’re just about approaching 8 weeks now … I’m struggling to remain a passive investor 😉

@David

Suggest you call up and demand to speak to Marie Allison who is Head of Customer Services at ATS

I spoke to her the other day and after a long rant told her I was making an official complaint and I wanted the same £150 they were offering new customers or I would pull the rest of the family’s money out

A low money grubbing stunt no doubt but worth a try…

I have yet to receive the written reply but I expect it will be the usual waffle and I’ll be going somewhere else with the rest of the money

You do wonder when the financial services industry will learn it actually does cost less to keep your existing customers happy than to go out and get new ones…

(They have also assured me twice that they will be rebating in cash the quarterly February fees they charged me)

Another aspect not considered for the costs of SIPPs is the cost of actually taking the pension if you are opting for income drawdown. Hargreaves Lansdown are very clear about their charges, but I have looked on a couple of other sites [Fidelity, Cavendish], and can find no mention of the subject whatsoever. As I am not far off the age when I might want to take drawdown this is an important concern.
This in the info from Hargreaves L : http://www.hl.co.uk/pensions/income-drawdown/charges-and-interest-rates
Does anyone know how other platforms compare?

HL to iWeb transfers, currently two months and still counting

with a few letters lost along the way

pretty sub-standard stuff

the one positive is that both companies have been helpful and apologetic on the occasions i have phoned to chase things up

I have a feeling that Vanguard themselves have been slow as hell as part of this process too