Attention UK investors! Remember our massive broker comparison table? Well, we’ve rolled up our sleeves and updated it again to help you find the best online broker for you.
Cutting the lawn with nail scissors would have been less tedious. But it would not have produced a quick and easy overview of all the main execution-only investment services.
Investment platforms, stock brokers, call ’em what you will… we’ve stripped ’em down to their undies for you to eyeball over a cup of tea and your favourite tranquillisers.
What’s changed with this update?
Zero-fee platform Lightyear is in. It’s getting good reviews on Trustpilot.
Chip has made the cut too. Have a shufty if you want an app that smites analysis paralysis by offering you simply ‘the best of three’ funds.
Meanwhile table stalwarts X-O and Sharedeal Active are out. They’ve been hoovered up by Interactive Investor in its seemingly relentless quest for flat-fee broker dominance.
Who’s the best broker?
It’s impossible to say. There are too many subtle differences in the offers. The UK’s brokers occupy more niches than the mammal family. And while I know which one is best for me, I can’t know which one is right for you.
What we have done is laser focus the comparison onto the most important factor in play: cost.
An execution-only broker is not on this Earth to hold anyone’s hand.
Yes, we want their websites to work. We’d prefer them to not screw us over, go bust, or send us to the seventh circle of call centre hell. These things we take for granted.
So customer service metrics are not included in this table. It’s purely a bare-knuckle contest of brute cost for services rendered.
On that basis we’ve updated our ‘Good for’ column as below.
Disclosure: Links to platforms may be affiliate links, where we may earn a small commission. It doesn’t affect the price you pay nor how we judge the brokers. This article and the comparison table are not personal financial advice. Your capital is at risk when you invest.
Beginners
- InvestEngine for ETFs. (Alternatively: Lightyear and Trading 212)
- Prosper for funds (also has a sprinkle of ETFs)
These are zero-fee brokers. It’s always worth looking at a zero-fee broker’s ‘How we make money’ page because – rest assured – they will be earning a buck, one way or another.
Just search that topic on their websites.
If zero-fee brokers make you feel queasy then stay under the FSCS £85,000 investor compensation limit or use a broker that charges fees directly. You’ll find some very competitive offers in our table.
Beginners who prefer direct fees
Established investors with portfolios worth £85,000+ / prefer to pay direct fees
- Freetrade for ETFs. (Alternatively: Halifax/iWeb. SIPPs: Interactive Investor, Fidelity, AJ Bell)
- Lloyds for funds. (Alternatively: Vanguard. iWeb if you hardly ever trade. SIPPs: Interactive Investor. N.B. Lloyds, iWeb and Halifax are the same firm for FSCS protection purposes.)
The best choice for you depends on how often you trade, the value of your accounts, plus your personal priorities around customer service, family accounts, flexible ISAs, multi-currency accounts and so on.
Our ‘Good for’ choices are purely cost-based. We assume 12 buy and four sell trades per year.
Using the full table
We divide the major UK brokers into four camps:
- Flat-fee brokers – these charge one price for platform services, regardless of the size of your assets. In other words, they might charge you £100 per year, whether your portfolio is worth £1,000 or £1 million. Generally, if you’ve got a large portfolio then you definitely want to look here. Bear in mind that fixed fee doesn’t mean you won’t also be tapped up for dealing monies and a laundry list of other charges.
- Percentage-fee brokers – this is where the wealthy need to be careful. These guys charge a percentage of your assets, say 0.3% per year. For a portfolio of £1,000 this would amount to a fee of £3 – but on £1 million you’d be paying £3,000. Small investors should generally use percentage-fee brokers. However even surprisingly moderate rollers are better off with fixed fees. Many percentage-fee brokers offer fee caps and tiered charges to limit the damage.
- Zero-fee brokers – these fresh upstarts apparently don’t charge you at all. Their marketing departments have it easy, simply pointing to £0 account charges and trading fees costing diddly squat. So why don’t these firms go bankrupt? Because they make up the difference using other methods. Revenue streams can include higher spreads, no interest on cash, and cross-selling more profitable services.
- Trading platforms – brokerages that suit active investors who want to deal mostly in shares and more exotic securities besides. Think of noob-unfriendly sites like Interactive Brokers, Degiro, and friends.
Our table looks complex. But choosing the right broker needn’t be any more painful than checking it offers the investments you want and running a few numbers on your portfolio.
Help us find the best online broker for all of you
Our table’s ongoing vitality relies on crowd-sourcing.
We review the whole thing roughly every three months. But it can be kept permanently up-to-date if you contact us or leave a comment every time you find an inaccuracy, fresh information, or a platform you think should be added.
Thanks to your efforts as much as ours, our broker comparison table has become an invaluable resource for UK investors looking to find the best online broker.
Take it steady,
The Accumulator
Hi All, 3 years ago after finding this site (a little late 52)i invested a lump sum in VLS 60 and also 40% with Iweb in an Isa, and both have done well. So we’ll I’ve have inadvertently gone way over the FSA compensation limit, I would like to do the same for my wife using the same fund so Q1. How do I reduce my own fund and transfer profits to my wife to be in line with FSA also Q2 is it best to remain with Iweb or invest directly with Vanguard, apologies for length but would appreciate help.
Hi David, you sell some of your units, withdraw the cash, then deposit same cash in your wife’s account and buy. To save faff, it would be worth checking with iweb if you can link your accounts and transfer the cash directly.
The answer to Q2 depends on how big your portfolio is and how often you trade. I’m purely thinking from a cost perspective. iWeb is hard to beat if your portfolio is worth mid five figures plus and you rarely trade.
Thanks The Accumulator, just a thought with the F.C.S. Compensation limit at 50k what do people with a few 100k do which these days doesn’t a great amount or do I worry too much
Apologies I should explain after toiling away in the same wearisome (especially last 5) employment for 37 years I am due to call it a day in the next 2. Hooray!! The public can be twits. Anyway I hope to be in the above category with approximately another 50k total 150k but what to do about those limits? As I only have one wife.
Thanks
Apologies for my last text a12 hrs shift turned into nearly 16. Once you have maxed out on compensation limits for my wife and myself (Isa) is it a matter of finding a different platform and fund to continue investing, I imagine there must be many people with more to invest than the compensation limits. I wonder if I worry a little to much. Thanks.
@ The Accumulator
Thanks for the link! I guess I fall under Young Buck, so I’ll look into Vanguard’s All-World tracker. That said, my gut is telling me to stick to Lifestrategy as I’m not confident in my ability to rebalance so maybe I’ll think about going up to from LS60% to LS80 or 100%
AJ Bell Youinvest are a percentage broker but have a cap of £30 (on ETFs, ITs, shares, and bonds). That makes them cheaper than the majority of fixed fee brokers! Best of both worlds (unless you want funds)?
Not sure about the dealing costs entry for Fidelity or Cavendish online. I went through Cavendish to set up a Fidelity Fundsnetwork pension, and there were no charges for regular investment. I set up my investment wishes – proportions into each of three funds, and the money went in there each month, with no charges other than the already mentiond 0.2% platform fee.
Hi Pete, the £1.50 refers to regular investing in ETFs, but thank you for pointing that out. I need to make that clearer on the table.
I am trying to transfer my ISA from Interactive Investor to Vanguard dues to the fees difference but II claim it does not exist! Hope they can sort it as it’s nearly £5,000!
Just a thought
In the Comparison site for Platforms-would it be possible to include the number of clients and financial size of the business
In these time when safety or viability of platforms is starting to precede cheapness of operation -it would help us to better determine the Quality of the Platform
xxd09
Just saw a sneaky advert for vitality’s isa which apparently gives a bonus of up to 15% over 25 years, of which there is a bonus every 5 years and the first of which is 2%
The catch – you have to be invested in vitality’s funds to get it – many of which have charged around 1% despite vitality saying they are in partnership with vanguard
The cost of the isa itself was i think 0.31% if you use their expensive vitality funds, 0.6% for other funds, and apparently zero if you somehow gain platinum status with vitality points, if that’s realistic, so overall not really a competitive product even among % brokers
Hi folks, Does anyone know if there are any brokers out there which will allow a single view of multiple accounts eg the 2x ISAs and 2x SIPPs of a married couple viewed as a single consolidated work . I can of course do this myself or using an online portfolio tool but having this facility which take away some of the work and also allow meaningful use of any portfolio analysis tools. Thanks, Neil
Hi
I am new to the investment world and planning to make my first investment. I have read a lot on this site but still have a few questions. I would highly appreciate if someone can shed the light.
-I am not planning to make frequent transactions, but I intend to invest significant (for me) amounts in ISA. I am interested in using low cost brokers and wanted to know how reliable are Iweb and X-O?
-what are the chances of low cost brokers going bust and what happens to my investments in this case?
Thanks for answer
Andy
Hi Andy, I’ve used iweb for several years and not had a problem. My needs are pretty basic though – the occasional trade once in the blue moon. iweb are part of the Halifax group. See the forum links on the broker table if you want to ask these questions of a wider crowd. No-one can tell you the chances of a broker going bust. Here’s the facts on the compensation scheme: https://monevator.com/investor-compensation-scheme/
Thank you for maintaining these tables, nowhere else that you can easily find on tinternet does it well, ie not telling you details until you click through
Would it be possible to know which ones allow in specie transfers so im not out of the market? As that alone puts me off switching current % fee broker to vanguard and then later from vanguard to a fixed fee
The halifax one could be a good place to park lump sums, ie one year build up with a % broker and the next year transfer to halifax, rinse and repeat
Interactive Investor just announced that they are upping there fees a bit:
https://www.moneyobserver.com/news/interactive-investor-introduces-new-monthly-fee-model
Actually the ii fees are going up quite a lot – from £22.50 a quarter to £39.96 (and some other charges are changing – e.g. non UK residents will now have to pay an additional £3.99 a month).
Works out OK for active investing as they are reducing their trade fees, but much more expensive for passive.
AFAIK (I have all their other emails), we were not notified about this (I have to assume I must have accidentally deleted two emails – one for me and one to my wife) as I cannot believe that they would not tell customers.
Really frustrating having only opened the SIPPs last year – fortunately they don’t have exit fees so it’s off we go.
And ii’s web-site still shows the existing fees with no mention on the page that this is changing from June. Seriously underhand.
Sorry – maths wrong – new quaterly fee is £29.97 not £39.96 – couldn’t edit.
Great to see the table updated again.
What’s happened to the comparison tool? Is that still going?
@Fremantle — Unfortunately Broker Compare (the guys behind the tool) have shut it down.
Inspired by Ermine’s recent posts could I propose a ‘Flexible’ column or note for the ISA related rows?
heres my tuppence (if there’s a ball that needs to get rolling):
IWEB no
HL no
Share Centre yes
Charles Stanley yes
@The Rhino — Another: Selftrade stocks and shares ISA is now Flexible.
A really useful table. HSBC GIC actually offers almost 400 funds from 20+ fund managers.
Unfortunately it doesn’t offer the full range of HSBC index trackers.
One feature that I have found important is whether the platform offers a dividend re-investment facility. HSBC doesn’t, so unless you use accumulation units where available (a good move) you can finish up with relatively small amounts of cash that you need to top up to the £100 min. I moved from HSBC GIC to HL – initially more expensive but now I that I use only ITs and ETFs the monthly fee is capped. Obviously you still ge the dealing charge but regular saving is pretty cost effective.
Keep up the good work.
We’re shifting from funds to investment trusts because we’re with Hargreaves Lansdown and they have a cap on charges for ITs but not for funds.
It’s not simple even within brokers.
Any reason the Lloyds annual platform fee has jumped from £40 to £120 ? As far as I can see it is still £20 every six months and the standard trading account admin fee waived if you have also have an ISA account so still £40 pa for most.
Thanks TA for all your rusty water eating(?)
I also find this comparison site is useful: http://www.comparefundplatforms.com/home
@ Maximus – many thanks for that link! Even with TA’s excellent table I struggle to feel 100% confident I’m making the right selection – but that comparison tool has confirmed that my calculations are correct. Finally feeling confident I’ll be jumping in the right direction I can wave a (not terribly fond) farewell to the fees at HL.
Cheers, MoMo
@MM – funnily enough I’m on my way back to HL after a few years hiatus. HL is pretty attractive on a cost/service basis but (strictly) only for a share/ETF/IT portfolio..
@ The Rhino – I’m a strictly passive, ISA-based, low dealing, trickle-in accumulation phase, self-balancing funds kinda guy – climbing my money mountain (okay, currently a hillock) one step at a time – and recently passed the £35K threshold, so time to switch to a flat fee platform. And that now looks like it will be with Interactive Investor.
HL were great while I was taking my first tentative steps into investing, and with a small portfolio, but now feels like the right time to chase low costs as the top priority. Sound’s like you have a slightly different style, for which the HL platform brings benefits.
MoMo
@MM – I use a few different brokers for different things, was 6 but now pared down to 4. They’ve all got their pros and cons to match against what you’re trying to achieve, but a bit of variety is also good from a diversification perspective in case one of them falls over in a heap.
Sad to see ATS (Alliance) disappear now they are being absorbed into ii. Have had a pep/ISA with them since the 80s. I use/ have used ATS, ii, Halifax share dealing and HL and haven’t had a moment’s problem with any of them. Biggest whinge is the investments offered. This can be surprisingly limited though HL and ii are the best. ATS made me sign as a sophisticated investor to buy a gold ETC: they all seem to take a different view.
@MoMo – Glad you found the link useful and well done for escaping the clutches of HL; I did the same after they massively hiked fees for passive funds several years ago. I’m with Interactive Investor now, but may soon jump ship to iWeb.
Good luck!
Yes it seems the choice for large fund portfolios grows ever smaller. I was with iWeb, ATS and Youinvest (had to switch my funds to ETFs on the latter some years back). I don’t really want to be transferred to II as I previously moved away from them due to poor customer service. I’ve concluded that it is time to try out the legendary HL, although this will mean switching another large tranche out of funds to ETFs.
Anyone else found a trouble free alternative for fund portfolios? If only we could clone iWeb (oh, wait….)
That compare funds site looks like it’s the comparison tool which was previously sited here. Ah well, it’s still useful….
It tells me to look into x-o – as long as I switch to ETFs. Any feedback from users here? For a SIPP with infrequent trading.
@ McFishcake – love the name. Reason Lloyds jumped is cos I misread the charges. Must drink less while updating the table 😉
My apologies for the confusion. The table has been corrected now.
For info wrt ATS, I have been given a date of 14 October for transition to the ii platform.
I have a SIPP with AJ Bell and a trading account and ISA with Interactive Investor. I would say that Interactive Investor is a low quality budget option whereas AJ Bell is far better quality.
– when you log in to ii it only asks for an id and password (which can be very simple) whereas AJ Bell asks for id, password and a security question. Very poor security with ii considering people may have much of their wealth administered from the platform.
– the user interface on AJ Bell is vastly superior. ii looks like a student project gone wrong and glitches out a lot of the time.
– worst of all from my perspective is that ii does not show you all the investment options you actually have when you research funds, etfs etc while showing options you actually cannot access. A good recent example is when I decided to invest in a FTSE 250 index. I wanted to choose an accumulation option as I don’t want to have to pay to reinvest the dividends every quarter. The cheapest option was shown as the HSBC FTSE 250 Index S Acc fund @ 0.08%. However when I tried to buy this fund ii told me I couldn’t. So I moved on to the next cheapest which was Vanguard FTSE 250 UCITS ETF VMID @0.1%. However this is a distribution ETF. When I actually got to the buy screen on ii I noticed another Vanguard ETF was listed – VMIG. This is the same as VMID but an accumulation fund. I bought this as it saves me having to pay to reinvest the dividends through a DRIP. Why is this ETF not listed with all the other Vanguard ETFs when you search for FTSE 250 ETFs? My cynical side tells me it is because ii likes to hide the accumulation fund and try and bamboozle customers into buying the distribution fund so they can collect the DRIP charges. It is either that or the ii website is rubbish. My confidence in ii has been undermined by these glitches. AJ Bell had none of these problems (and it was researching on AJ Bell that revealed VMIG to me). Anyone else had issues like this?
> when you log in to ii it only asks for an id and password (which can be very simple) whereas AJ Bell asks for id, password and a security question. Very poor security with ii considering people may have much of their wealth administered from the platform.
Asking for two different passwords isn’t any more secure than asking for one password. It is disappointing that brokers aren’t supporting 2 factor authentication via TOTP, app, or SMS.
Interactive Investor have introduced an offer for those opening a new SIPP by 3rd April 2020, to waive their additional £120pa SIPP fee until April 2021. So you pay the main platform charge of £119.88pa (£9.99pm) but not the additional SIPP charge until April 2021.
Vanguard still potentially cheaper during the period to April 2021 for SIPPs below about 80K in value, but interesting development all the same.
https://www.ii.co.uk/ii-accounts/sipp#offer-terms
@Andy. Not sure who else does, but AJ Bell does support app-based 2 factor auth:
https://www.youinvest.co.uk/faq/how-do-i-set-two-factor-authentication
I probably missed it, or am being dim, but what does ‘ unrestricted’ mean as in ‘ unrestricted fund portfolio’?
Also, doesn’t the II sipp qualify for such a statement?
Thanks for the work.
Whilst I very much appreciate all the hard work that has gone in here I don’t quite understand what all the fuss is about. Maybe I am missing something? I and my wife are with HL and both have SIPPs and ISAs. We don’t invest in funds as there is plenty of choice in the ETF space for passives. Consequently we are charged 200 each pa for our SIPPs and 45 each pa for our ISAs 490 pa in all. That represents charges of between 3 and 4 bps I.e. 0.03% p.a. There are no additional fees for drawdown. I think my time is better spent worrying about asset allocation (and the lifetime allowance) but would be good if someone could put me straight.
@Merlotman — I don’t think you’re missing anything. Rather, you’re in a good spot. You’re even using the right vehicles for that platform, and with an evidently large portfolio your ongoing fees are indeed very small.
However this website isn’t called Merlotman-evator. 😉 Not everyone is in the same position as you.
If you were transitioning from years with a high fee wealth advisor and a clutch of opaque active funds and you were moving towards a self-managed passive portfolio, then choosing the right broker (and monitoring your choice over time as your portfolio grows) is an important part of the picture.
Also we only do 2-3 table updates a year, which is approximately 1% of the annual output of Monevator, so your definition of “all the fuss” may be different from mine! 🙂
Thanks TI
I hope I didn’t sound pompous – I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing any hidden charges. And I can assure you that where I am today has been very much down to luck with my active investing, hence my increasing interest in passive on the basis I am soon to mean revert!
@Merlotman — Haha, no worries at all. Sometimes some people forget that we have to write for a huge range of people (including first/one-time visitors to the site) so it’s a bit of a nightmare pleasing everyone. Just wanted to restate that I suppose, instead of looking at my portfolio shrinking by the hour… 😉
Hi, I what would be the best broker for a £20k stocks and shares ISA holding the Index funds mentioned on this site and £20k holding various other funds.
Hi. w.r.t the Vanguard SIPP, I received a mail from them this week that they would accept in-speccie transfers (of Vanguard funds of course) by the end of July this year.
@ Mr Optimistic – Unrestricted means the platform doesn’t limit your product choice in the way that, say, Vanguard and HSBC does. I see I haven’t updated the notes underneath the table so I need to do that. Also, Unrestricted may not be the best choice of words as every platform has its limitations somewhere along the line. Any feedback on this would be great. I need a word that alerts people to platforms that limit your choice to:
a) their products only e.g. Vanguard
b) a quite limited list of products e.g. HSBC, Fidelity / Freetrade / Trading 212 ETFs.
Yes, ii are unrestricted but they currently don’t get the nod in terms of ‘best buy’ platform so I don’t mention it. Same with all other platforms that don’t fit my ‘best buy’ criteria.
@ Snowman and Algernond – thank you for the tip offs!
@ Merlotman – you can do better! Especially if you trade a fair bit. But I’m sure you have bigger fish to fry given your cost base.
@ Andy and Ken – HL don’t support two-factor authentication which is surprising.
@ Ince – take a look at Vanguard and Cavendish and others near the top of the percentage fee table.
@TA. Thanks for that. For a sipp portfolio above £50k ii still looks ok compared to say iweb.
Disappointed to discover Fidelity don’t offer a stop loss on SIPP investments. I assume the same in other accounts.
AJ Bell Youinvest exit charges look VERY out of step with the market now. £25 per holding, and NO cap.
I wonder if a useful addition might be to also take into account the interest rate that the platform pays on uninvested cash. It might complicate matters too much, but I have quite a large cash allocation (relatively risk averse and haven’t decided on a suitable bond strategy) and my current platform pays 0% (maybe they all do).
I wonder if a new flat fee provider will ever turn up. I have a lot with II, owing to them hovering up ATS, near enough 7 figures. I am not overly concerned about security but it’s a strong factor against putting any more in. More concern is the potential for increased fees if competition is restricted. Their service has been fine though.
@MrO, probably not, would be my guess.
Flat fees on fund holdings now more or less down to II and the IWeb/Halifax/Lloyds label, of which iWeb is the cheapest.
The other way to get kind of flat fees is to avoid funds, and use YouInvest or Hargreaves Lansdown. The only one of these I haven’t tried yet is HL. I have three brokers and more or less happy with them. Was uneasy about the II transfer due to previous bad experience, but so far so ok.
This table would be great as a spreadsheet, where you input the amount you’ve got in funds, ETF’s/ITs/shares and cash and it shows you how much each platform would cost.
I agree with Gizzard. I feel as though I have a straight yes or no answer, given my holding amount, type and regularity of new investments, but… man it’s fiddly to work out which is definitely the best for me.
@Cliffo @Gizzard — We have had such a tool in the past, and have also explored spreadsheets. The tool was pretty good — it was provided by a third-party called Broker Compare who we worked in conjunction with. Ultimately they had to close down because they couldn’t make any (/enough) money to cover the costs etc.
Anyway, the tools/sheets come with their own issues, such as assumptions built-in but hard to surface (or not disclosed at all) or certain factors that are relevant for some platforms not being featured because they’re not a factor at all with the others.
Ultimately nothing beats doing the sums for yourself! This article is not going to frighten the horses, but it might be useful if you’ve not read it:
https://monevator.com/work-out-cheapest-platform/
Won’t http://www.comparefundplatforms.com/ do what Gizzard and Cliffo have suggested?
My Dad recently passed away leaving everything to my Mum and we’re in the process of making things more simple. Dad had a good amount invested in many different funds on multiple platforms through his IFA but I do not sip from the well of active management and am considering moving some of the ISA accounts to Vanguard. In a perfect world everything (even the SIPPs) would be transferred to Vanguard and split between VWRL and the Global Bond Fund but I’m now having to think of the FCA protection limit (something I’ve not had to consider thus far). There are a few products that I’m happy for the IFA to continue to deal with but I can’t think of any reason the active funds shouldn’t be moved. Am I missing anything? I’d be grateful to hear of other posters’ experiences if they’ve been through anything similar. Similarly, has anyone used an IFA to provide anything that a retail investor cannot access that has proven useful? Thanks in advance
@ LALILULELO – I recently moved my elderly parents to a two fund portfolio + deposit account arrangement. They draw a fixed amount from the deposit account each month, it gets topped up with dividends as and when they’re paid and then, every year or so I’ll top up the deposit account from capital, and re balance at the same time. I partly did it for convenience but also because it meant I could stop thinking about yield.I went for VWRL and the ishares aggregate bond – AGBP and both are held at Hargreaves Lansdown in ISA’s – £45 per year each. I don’t really like HL, and think they were/are immensely greedy with their best buy lists and Woodford promoting malarkey, not to mention the platform charge on funds, but the service is very good and the platform excellent. As for IFA’s, I suspect you’ll learn most of what you need to know by ferreting around on this fine site.
Thanks Ruby, I haven’t looked into AGBP so I’ll put it on the list. If you don’t mind me asking, did you have any qualms only using HL (vis a vis the FCA protection) and only the 2 funds or is the perceived wisdom that the collapse of Vanguard, iShares and HL is far too remote to worry about such things? And you’re right about this fine site, I might have to dig through the fantastic Mark Meldon articles again in particular!
I don’t know whether it takes account of interest payments (if any) on any cash held. But I’ll take a closer look.
I use HL. I believe you only need to concern yourself with any cash you hold with them. But even then I believe (check for yourself though) that they split the money between 5 different banks so in theory, you would be covered by the FCA for up to five times £85,000 (£425,000). Any funds you hold on the platform are ringfenced in your name and would be unaffected if either/both HL and Vanguard went bust. Although you’d have trouble accessing them for a while.
@ LALILULELO – I haven’t given it much thought and the amounts exceed the compo anyway. As far as cash is concerned I believe it is as @ Gizzard says; as far as investments are concerned, I think the likelihood of HL, Vanguard, iShares going bust having trousered investor money to be slim enough not to really have to worry about it. I’d be more bothered about an IT melt down but suspect/hope that would just affect accessibility for a while. I imagine @ The Investor or @ The Accumulator have written about this somewhere and both are much better informed than me.
Not sure if this has been mentioned elsewhere but a decent discount in platform fees applies if you land a job with HL, however minor. The big win is that this discount applies for perpetuity even if only employed for a six month contract, and applies to all “connected” family members with an account. I estimate this discount will be worth in excess of £150,000 over our collective predicted lifetimes, which is nice. It certainly helps if you live near Bristol though…
Trading 212 have a really great new feature (albeit shamelessly copied from M1 finance in the US). This is their investment ‘pie’. You set up your pie by choosing your instruments, setting the desired % allocation and can then automate regular investments into the pie. You can then rebalance at the click of a button at whatever frequency you choose. you can also set up multiple pies for different financial goals and objectives. It’s something I’ve been waiting for in the UK ever since I first saw the functionality in the Us broker M1 Finance (why are our UK brokers so slow to innovate??). Alongside zero commission trading, this makes Trading 212 a compelling option. I’m just a bit concerned about investing too much money with them initially as, even though they are FCA authorised, their parent company is registered in Bulgaria.
I currently use IG’s smart portfolio – the fee is capped at £250/year so it is worthwhile for large investments…They offer a number of portfolios based on your risk appetite and do the re-balancing for you (so not 100% passive)…They’ve partnered with Blackrock so all the investments within the portfolios are ishares ETFs. I’ve only been with them for 6 months but I’m very happy with them overall…
Don’t suppose anyone here knows of other brokers who offer corporate/company brokerage accounts?
I know of ii, HL (though they’ve temporarily suspended new accounts due to the ‘vid) and IG. I’m also aware that Vanguard offer an institutional service for higher rollers than my little company. Thanks in advance.
Would really appreciate a specific deeper comparison on SIPPs and in particular differences between the accumulate and decumulate phases. There seems to be a whole world of opacity on the precise charges during drawdowns for instance e.g. is drawdown cost all-in or are there trading costs to layer on top for each individual drawdown?
@Bobbins What, like AJ Bell charge of £30 for any ad hoc drawdown?
Incidently, I am finding the fact that AJ Bell actually provide the SIPP capability to iWeb is adding an additional level of complexity/delay when trying to transfer my SIPP out.
Hi guys,is it possible to calculate an approximate break even point where an EFT platform (e.g. freetrade) costs would start to be cheaper than a funds platform (e.g. fidelity or Vanguard).
Reason is I like Vanguard LS in general but don’t like the bias element and would prefer a 79/30 eq/bd split. Also wondered how much a diversification difference adding Property, small cap, gold (EFT / funds) makes against just having a simple global tracker / bond portfolio.
Did wonder about looking at having two fund of funds (VLS80 & fidelity multi asset allocator adv.) to get as many asset allocations as possible but wondered if it could be done cheaper with half a dozen funds.
I dread the day I have to move to iWeb – don’t like a cheap looking website when it’s all my savings. Might just sacrifice the fees and use Halifax.
@Adt
Be careful with Halifax, contact options are very limited: no internal messaging service (like CSD or Vanguard), no support email, and waiting time for their phone support is 30-40 minutes. I inititiated a share ISA transfer at the beginning of February and have another 10 weeks to wait – more than 6 months!
@275Xenobyte
6 months! I thought Vanguard’s 30 day transfer time was slow.
@adt Iweb is Halifax.
Cheap website is good, it means they’re not spending your money on flashy bells and whistles, that are more distraction than useful.
I’ve been using Iweb for years, the only time I’ve had any problem was just after ‘planned maintenance’ when everything ran slow and eventually timed out. It was working normally within an hour, when I tried again.
I use HL for one of my two SIPPS. I find it the most cost effective platform for my particular needs. I hold a diversified portfolio of about 20 IT’s yielding just over 4%/year. The platform max cost is £200/year. There is no charge for withdrawing money on a monthly basis. There is of course an £11 trading charge. However, I now only need to trade once a month on average which costs me a further £100/year. So in total the cost is approx. £300/year. The service and platform are excellent and so for me I find it’s a very cost effective option.
My other SIPP is on the LifeSight platform and made up of index tracker funds at a total charge (including fund AMC) of 0.26%/year. No cost for trading or withdrawing money. However, the fund choice is very limited.
All ISA’s are on ii and are a mix of funds and ETF’s.
What are people’s recent experiences with in specie transfers from Vanguard to iWeb? I’ve seen some horror stories on Reddit etc. about transfers taking months to complete; or not being done in specie even when requested.
The actual table says updated MAY 24, 2021 ?
@BerkshirePat – Shhhh! @TA will hear you! (Fixed now, mea culpa. Thanks for flagging.)
Thanks 🙂
Thank you.
I use A J Bell and Vanguard for most of my stuff.
Customer service is important to me, in addition to costs.
I’ve always found customer service at Vanguard to be very good, and almost always receive a response, that evening, to questions that I raise. The quality of the responses have almost always been excellent, insofar as they properly address, and respond to the issue being raised.
A J Bell, somewhat less so. Both in the timeliness of their replies, and the quality of the responses, whether in terms of vagueness, or something that looks rather like a fob off. A recent question of mine asked why it seemed that when I wanted to review my transaction history, there seemed to be no way that I could go back any more than 1 year, or the previous tax year. The response just reiterated what I said, as a fact.
The reason I asked, is that I currently print out each monthly transactions, and am considering whether to leave them up there ‘in the cloud’ at the broker/investment platform. Would appreciate advice/other views on this.
@trufflehunt (283) I am also mistrustful of relying on being able to access my information for sufficient time from any provider when I just leave it on their platform. An alternative to physically printing it off is to ‘print to PDF’ and store on your own computer or cloud service (e.g. Dropbox).
I strongly recommend that you keep PDF copies of all your contract notes and statements. I also keep a financial diary with entries like:
04/10/21 Bought 58 VEVE for £3,756.07 SIPP
I store these in a separate directory for each year, and keep physical backups and a backup on the cloud.
@David @Geoff
Thank you, appreciated.
Hi all, 37 years on the NHS front line it’s been difficult. But I’m about to say goodbye at 59, thanks to this resource things will be a little easier. So thanks to the Accumulator and all. Regards.
@ Flying Moonwards – I recently completed an in specie transfer between Hargreaves Lansdown and AJ Bell. It took months and they managed to cock it up into the bargain. I had a similar experience overseeing a transfer for my mum a couple of years ago. Taking months to do it badly seems to be an industry (bog) standard.
@ trufflehunt – agree that AJ Bell customer service is vague and smacks of ticking a box rather than going the extra mile. My needs are simple so I put up with it. HL on the other hand are great for customer service but I resent the fees. There’s probably a connection 🙂 Interesting to know that Vanguard are excellent.
Can anyone comment on what Fidelity are like?
@ BerkshirePat – thank you! Clearly you have more leverage with TI than I do 😉
@ David – thank you so much for taking the time. I can’t imagine how hard it’s been on the frontline but I’m pleased as punch you’re able to leave it all behind. Best of luck in your new life!
Thanks for the update, I always point my friends and others to this article when they ask me questions about which broker and if per trade fee based or platform yearly percentage fees are better. Many people have made choices based of this .
iWeb certainly still is the best choice for myself and I will continue to use unless things substantially change.
TFJ
As an iWeb and Vanguard user, I have been considering using Freetrade to spread the load nearer the £85k protection limits. Has anyone here any idea how the price spreads on Freetrade compare with market prices?
“Bump” for all the good things said about iWeb.
I moved SIPP from Vanguard to Freetrade. Primarily as fixed monthly charge made economic sense. Also both distributing and accumulating Vanguard etf’s were available with Freetrade. Option also exists for non Vanguard etf’s, investment trusts and individual shares. In specie transfer took longer than I would have wished but went through OK.
Would welcome a Monevator article on investengine.
Hi you might want to update this section:
“Zero commission and share dealing platforms – Brokerages that suit investors who want to deal mostly in shares, ETFs and more exotic securities besides. Sites like Freetrade, Interactive Brokers, Degiro and friends fill this brief. Beware: don’t think zero commission platforms are giving it away. Their services cost money so they’ll be making up the difference somewhere. Probably in less obvious fees such as spreads.”
On the spreads part, its illegal in the UK to use payment for order flow, basically the act of directing deals through a certain broker to take a commission on the trading spread.
Just a heads up that the link to the comparison table looks broken to me.
Hello.
Two things:
1. The links to the comparison table are not working for me.
2. I see a few comments about people spreading their investments because of reaching the £85k protection limit. I thought that limit was related to cash and not for investments?
@Garrie @Phil — Thanks for the heads up but I’m a bit mystified, as the links are definitely working for me. (The one at the top and the one at the bottom).
If anyone else is seeing this problem could you please report here exactly what ‘not working’ means? (E.g. 404 not found, bad gateway, link doesn’t do anything, etc) — thanks in advance!
Well both links are now working.
@Garrie (#297), @TI(#296):
FYI, this happened to me too – links originally not working, but now are?!?
@Garrie @Al Cam — Thanks. Sounds like it was a server error. If someone could say as I mentioned exactly what “not working” meant it’d be good to know for the record. 🙂
(There’s a lot of way links can ‘not work’ on the Internet, pointing to do different things you see.)
@TI:
Effectively a 404 error – but with a tailored message about first love/crush if I remember correctly.
@ Garrie – the £85K limit now applies to investments too
@Al Cam — Thanks, that’s an internal link error which is really bizarre as the links didn’t change. Hmm.
I recently switched my S&S ISA from HL to ii. All very smooth, painless (other than the recent price drops) and quick, certainly compared to when I moved a SIPP from HL to AJ Bell a while back.
No major criticism of HL, other than the slightly higher costs, but the service, website and app are excellent. First impressions of the ii app are a bit mixed/different, but as I plan to trade occasionally and regularity invest, mainly in Vanguard LS80, it agurbley makes me less likely to log in to look and therefore be tempted to tinker. It certainly lacks the immediate functionability and availability of information available on the excellent HL website/app, but For example, if researching funds or trusts, I can’t see a way on ii to find out the underlying % of holdings or KID easily, certainly compared to HL. (they are there, just takes a bit more digging).
Thanks again for the update.
Just to note that ii are probably about to be bought by abdn. This introduces some uncertainty about their future charging model.
@everyone — Afternoon all 🙂 As mentioned by my comment on the updated broker comparison table, we’ve moved to a new method to display all this data.
More evolution than revolution for sure, but hopefully easier for you to read and easier for us to update!
If you spot anything lost in translation, then please do drop a note in the comments to the table. Thanks!
I think I like the new look and the additional info it provides.
I have been considering using X-O as an alternate ISA platform with, at least initially, limited trading of funds and/or ETF’s.
Could you therefore please say a bit more about why you decided to place X-O into Trading Platform as opposed to Flat Fee?
P.S. I should have said I already use iWEB.
Choosing a broker is like having a favorite cheese. so many factors to consider, each holding a small niche, and your tastes changing as you develop a palette. This is as close a comparison in the UK as there is.
JimJim
Hi all, just considering the balance/trade off between cheap platform fees and the FSCS 85K limit – in that is it worth risking breaching it for cheaper fees (and poorer service probably) or sticking with the belt & braces FSCS limit or as near as possible to it?
I have transferred some DC pensions with poor service to SIPPs and also some ISA’s, and with these savings over many years you can soon reach the FSCS limit which seems quite low. I only invest in passive funds and have accounts with IWeb – cheap/average service but not tried transfers into them because of poor reviews in this regard, Vanguard – cheap but terrible service when it comes to transfers – they completely messed up mine and then did not attempt to resolve it for months and had to complain numerous times – so has put me off having too much with them although I do like Vanguards funds to be honest, AJ Bell – pretty run of the mill/average I found with everything from cost to service (not the best or worst) and Hargreaves Lansdown – excellent service including telephone but at fairly high cost for a platform. Transferred a smaller pension around 45K into their SIPP but as all in Vanguard LS funds feel it could be cheaper elsewhere. However having had a couple of banks of mine go bust during the financial crash I feel it is not safe to breach the 85K FSCS protection limit by much and also read the reviews/horror stories about ISA/SIPP transfers to/from Interactive Investor and others which puts me off them.
At the moment I have nowhere near the limit in any platform but if I did consolidate some into cheaper ones and transferred some of my cash ISA’s in time to stocks/shares ISA’s I then could do. At the moment I would consider maybe going to 100K max but is this being too over conservative for the actual risk of a platform going bust?
It’s just you don’t want to risk your pensions or see them eaten away in fees either (especially in the current market climate with inflation and no real returns and risk of recession) as I am now in forced (not intended or planned for) early retirement in early 50’s due to health conditions and so have to entirely use my pensions/savings to live on.
So do you favour more towards cheaper fees or safety? I know it also depends on a lot of variables like how much of a pot you have as you can likely take more risk if you have a larger pot. (I don’t have a very large pot and it could have to last myself and other half more years now and no other sources of income except will get state pension at 67.)
Any thoughts, wise words and musings most welcome. Thanks.
I can’t see it on my browser (Chrome on OS) but I’ll have a fiddle about.
Also, in the new Convertkit emails (fancy!), the title of the blog post is missed out, so a person needs to go to the post via search engine/url instead of clicking on a link in the email.
@The Hare — I believe the heading was a one-off SNAFU with this email. 🙂 I had to create the email manually because for some reason it didn’t get transmitted to Convertkit automatically (perhaps because it was updated, not sure). And I forgot to repeat the clickable title when I did so.
I can see the table on Chrome on iOS. Note you have to click through to the table — this is just an ‘alert’ post. 🙂
Just received an email from Freetrade. The £10/mo account offers a SIPP and an ISA, has free trades (duh) but also pays 3% on uninvested cash up to £4000… which is enough to cover the fee.
@ Al Cam – Re: XO – back in the day XO was one of the few platforms in the table that didn’t offer funds and majored on share trading.
It didn’t quite belong with the other quieter, flat fee offerings available at the time.
Meanwhile, as the market and the broker table have developed there are many more high turnover trading platforms available e.g. degiro and Interactive Brokers.
These don’t really belong with newer entrants like InvestEngine and Freetrade in my view.
You raise a really good point because I’ve finally separated those quite different propositions but without updating my view on XO.
I think XO is probably closer to a Freetrade than an Interactive Broker in the current market, so I’ll probably move XO to the flat fee table now you’ve prompted me to think about it more deeply. Thank you!
@TA:
Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
Your reply has prompted me to double-check that I can hold what I want to in X-O.
Their website does say:
You can invest in a wide range of products including UK listed shares, Gilts, Bonds, Exchange Traded Funds and Investment Trusts. Please note that you cannot buy or hold overseas shares or unit trusts in an X-O account.” at
https://www.x-o.co.uk/isa-account.html#what-invest
So certainly something to bear in mind.
Thanks again.
Thanks for the useful table. I just realized I’m potentially paying 300 pounds/yr more than I should have, e.g. because I ‘m using percentage broker rather than flat fee broker and have more than 20,000 invested. Just want to be sure though, the only difference is the account fee, the fund management fee is the same regardless which platform I use? e.g. if I buy vanguard lifestrategy either directly or through Lloyds, the only difference is the account management fee? Thanks.
@ Mei – that’s right.
There is the occasional exception when a deal is cut between a broker and a fund manager that gives the platform a slightly cheaper version of the fund. I don’t worry about those because I’ve never seen one that makes it worth my while to stay at a high-cost broker.
Moreover, Vanguard don’t cut those deals so that slight nuance doesn’t apply to LifeStrategy funds.
@TA (#313):
Re “so I’ll probably move XO to the flat fee table now you’ve prompted me to think about it more deeply. Thank you!”
In the latest update XO still seems to be categorised as a “Trading platform”. What did we miss last time out?
Good to see you have updated this given the Guardian sent its readers to you for this guidance over the weekend.
A minor point that may concern some: the various platforms also have very different charges for drawing down SIPPs. It can change the choice, for example Hargreaves Lansdown with a relatively high percentage fee has no drawdown fee at all which in our case (transferring a work DC fund prior to drawdown) gave it the edge.
It may be nice to also cover Junior type of accounts. I have recently spent some time looking for cheap JISA and found that I can have one for free (no platform fee) with Fidelity and if I invest in funds and not ETF there is also no dealing fee so it is completely free.
@ zemanlx – really good point. I’ll have a think about how I can incorporate that info. I fight a running battle against overloading it with even more complexity than it features now, but there must be a way!
@ Jonathan B – absolutely! That was a nice surprise that kicked me into gear 🙂
@ Al Cam – you have an eye for detail #4052 😉 On reflection I still feel X-O is heavily tilted towards share dealing and so belongs in the trading table. Do pushback though if you disagree.
@TA (#320):
Fair enough.
Whilst it was noted above that within an X-O ISA:
a) “You can invest in a wide range of products including UK listed shares, Gilts, Bonds, Exchange Traded Funds and Investment Trusts. Please note that you cannot buy or hold overseas shares or unit trusts in an X-O account.”
b) Their SIPP seems to be limited to just shares and uses a third party for SIPP administration services, namely Gaudi Regulated Services Limited.
c) And their home page tag line is still “Would you like a simple, low cost, no fuss way to buy and sell shares online?”
So, I agree on balance it seems X-O is probably “heavily tilted towards share dealing”. The only real exception being their ISA offer – which incidentally was what I was researching last time out.
In any case, your guide, your rules.
@zemanix – good spot, does it require an associated adult account to qualify?
@TA yes, growing complexity is as issue here and you have my respect to keeping it for so long. Maybe having it more interactive would help with reading it. Something like users select what type of account they are interested and how much money they have to keep there which would show them only relevant subset of brokers or something. However, I understand that keeping all data updated is pain as solving riddles in fees and T&C of brokers sites is probably the most time consuming and boring task I can think of. Therefore Thank you for doing it for us.
@the rhino not that I am aware of. But I have a SIPP with them where I have parked it for £45 a year which is also great deal if you do not trade and just waiting for your pension age.
pondering moving some of my ETFs in my isa over to AJ bell for platform diversifcation..
but in 2 weeks its the ex dividened date for the ETFs , if my funds are being moved across providers im concerned they might be in’ no mans land’ on the ex div date [ mid dec] and miss the dividends!
can anyone reasure me ?
My wife used to work as a fitness trainer in a small gym, one of her jobs was cleaning the pool with a toothbrush .. the scum line, where the water line meets the side.
Thanks for the update.
Thanks for your work on this, it has finally stimulated a need to review if not act. I well understand that reducing the costs of running my wife’s and my portfolio is necessary. So setting costs aside for one moment…are all the platforms safe places to put our investments? I would be looking at a flat fee provider but have no experience of any platform apart from II and that was some time ago. I moved because the service supplied was creaky at best.
Ah had stumbled on this last week although not on the front page. Interesting that Fidelity seems to have moved above A J Bell for substantial SIPPs invested in ETFs due to low fee caps. Long term move or just short term market conditions?
Hadn’t really considered Aviva previously for drawdown, as had been thinking I’d eventually go back to HL.
However, it could be instead of transferring my DC pension which is with Aviva, it could be the other way round and I transfer my SIPP to them.
Will need to see what funds/ETFs they have available.
@ Ray – Sadly it’s above our pay grade to declare a platform ‘safe’. We’ve seen too many storied financial institutions and firms fail to be able to make that call.
The first step when considering a new platform is to make sure they have FCA authorisation. There’s more on the platform comparison page and here about that:
https://monevator.com/investor-compensation-scheme/
The above piece also includes a brief summary on what happened during the UK’s two most high profile broker busts.
Re: flat fee table – it’s also worth considering who the parent companies are: e.g. Lloyds Bank for 3 of the services listed – Halifax, iWeb and Lloyds Share Dealing. HSBC also offer a flat fee broker’s service.
I’m WIP moving Mrs Bs account from Vanguard to Int Inv, after which I will move too. I don’t believe that you get the same or similar benefits as they do in the US. A recent run in with them where I was unable to access our accounts for 8 days due to their error, bordered on farce. If you attempt to escalate, they refuse to provide basic company information. They, VG, would not confirm if their Euro MD resides at Walbrook EC4N, and I still await a reply to my July 17 letter, after obtaining “companies house” address confirmation, making it necessary to copy and paste the letter into their “secure message” system so that it couldn’t be ignored.
Maybe a generational thing, but I absolutely insist on being treated as a customer, especially when I’m paying. As far as I’m concerned, they’re milking their “Which” recommendation, the recent swing to passives, and hype. I have to say though, that their system is good and informative, but so it should be.
In contrast, AJB and II, are approachable, their Exec. offices swiftly respond when necessary. The Abrdn takeover of II now includes them in one of the largest UK finance houses. They have better facilities, including the Morningstar “Ex-ray”, and it’s cheaper too. Whenever the next 2007/8 arrives, I want a lot better than my recent experience with VG.
They obviously suit their 500k customers, but until they improve, I’m out.
Since 2013 looking at the comments.
Thanks for your service…….:)
Thanks for the heads up about the iWeb account waiver! Does anyone know the answer to this question: if I transfer my ISA from Vanguard to iWeb, will my original ISA be closed? I’ve built up more than the £20k annual limit in my Vanguard ISA by moving spare cash in and out either side of April 6th, and I don’t want to lose the extra allowance.
Dear Accummulator,
Many thank you for your effort and time in maintaining the platform comparison.
Great work. Thank you.
Thanks TA, you’re a trojan translating that King James Bible every few months for us mere mortals.
It’s an invaluable resource for all of us as trying to decipher all this for ourselves to compare brokers is a complete nightmare – sort of similar to doing your CGT calculations that I’m just starting on now but much more work (I started banging my head against the wall 6 weeks ago in preparation).
Hope more come on here to give you an enormous pat on the back and acknowledge all the long hours of tedious laborious work that goes into this and all the many other useful articles you constantly keep updated. I am always referring to this and many others such as “Best Global Tracker Funds” and “Low Cost Index Funds” etc.
Many thanks for all your hard work.
@ AS – thank you for that! I’m glad it helps. The broker market is a bewildering nightmare – damn niche marketing.
@Wodger I’ve transferred an S&S ISA from Vanguard to iWeb and the original ISA at Vanguard remained open.
* I want to put in a good word for iWeb, who seem to regularly come in for criticism for their out-of-date/clunky website.
* I have used iWeb for many years and also use Vanguard and x-o. I no longer use Charles Stanley, ClubFinance Frequent Trader and InvestEngjne.
* It may be that my brain is peculiar, but I find the app-free iWeb the simplest to use and their Tradeplan feature (which I use to buy on the dips to grant me a feeling of control when the chips are down) completely reliable. They are great on the phone too. And when I need to move some cash to keep under the £85k protection it doesn’t take too long, unlike Vanguard who are hopeless in this regard. I have tried to switch money from iWeb to Vanguard and it simply never happened. I gave up and moved to x-o instead and while x-o are very good in communication they cost slightly more and the app-free site works OK but is somewhat unintuitive.
* I may need a fourth leg to my investment stool and I wonder if Interactive Investor are good to deal with.
I’m non-UK resident albeit UK tax resident living in the EEA. Are there any UK brokers that would take a £ based investment sum?
What is meant by “Direct fee fund portfolios”?
@ADT – excellent question! A Direct Fee portfolio means one that you pay directly for e.g. via account fees and trading costs. As opposed to zero-fee brokers where you pay indirectly.
I’d love to hear if anyone has a better name for this. I brainstormed a bunch with TI but this was the best we could do and we don’t really like it.
Maybe I should call zero-fee brokers “indirect fee brokers” instead.
@Chris – my best guess would be Interactive Investor, AJ Bell and Hargreaves. I don’t know if they take on non-UK residents but they’re big outfits so possibly do. Somebody must be servicing all those UK ex-pats.
@Onedrew – thank you for that! I think iweb are sorely underrated. The only criticism I’ve ever really heard is about the website. Generally most Monevator readers who mention iweb speak positively about them. Especially the tradeplans.
@Onedrew – I use a few investment platforms. iweb are good (have an account) and cheap esp now no joining fee. I don’t see anything wrong with them. Website is fine – maybe just a bit old fashioned these days but when you pay next to nowt what do these people expect? Sometimes customer support can be a bit iffy esp if you have a bit more involved question but if you don’t get the answer you need and go back/complain, you seem to get there in the end. Also backing of a large banking group makes them a safe bet unlike some of the fee free digital jobs.
Totally agree – I find Vanguard who also have acc with, pretty much useless. Transfers in or out are generally terrible and lots chasing all the time – done a few and only one went smoothish. One SIPP transfer in took months and mega hassle, HL did their end very quick. I try to stay away from transfers with them now – not worth the hassle. Probably will just use for GIA cash. They are not real capable. Customer service hit and miss and they are so slooooooow at everything they do. I personally don’t think they are all they are cracked up to be. Their global funds/etfs charges are no longer as competitive as they used to be. They are failing in this country anyway, IMO.
Interactive Investor are good. Website is good and easy to use. Customer service is excellent and I’m never waiting long on phone to get through to support and when you do they’re helpful/good I find. If you have large wodge with them, works out good value (£11.99 month fees for ISA & Trading if have over 50K and I believe £4.99 month if under 50K and they do have friends & family as well which means cos I pay full fee other members of family (like my partner) get free accounts upto 50K value. Done transfers with them and they are good – they get on with it I found and don’t mess about.
I tried to engage with InvestEngine, as their online etf account looked reasonable and opened an account to get an idea, but on 4 separate occasions I asked questions to see what customer service was like (as only have the messaging service – no phones) with view to sticking some dough in to trial (but to keep below the FSCS limit on basis that they’re untested/a start up/make big losses etc). But never got there – each time found their customer service useless/hopeless/incompetent – so gave up, so account sat redundant. Hey ho. Why did you not favour them – similar reasons?
Also if you want just etfs rather than funds, AJ Bell fairly good and have capped fees on etfs as do HL (on ISA which I have, believe no fees in GIA). HL good but will be worse as sold to private equity so likely debt will follow – so likely more risky than previously. Also Fidelity not bad for etfs – believe trading ac fee free but ISA £90/yr capped charge so fairly reasonable. All these 3 expensive for funds (unit trusts) though so best to stay away from them with these.
@TA: thanks for all the hard work on the updates. It’s now one of the seven wonders of the UKPF world 🙂
@Jon: #342: “AJ Bell fairly good”.
I’m thinking about switching from HL to AJB following the PE takeover of the former and the new owners saddling the platform with debt.
HL have been pretty good for large ETF (and IT and single name shares) portfolios (with caps of £120 and £45 annually in SIPP and ISA respectively) and customer service is still fine (although used to be great) but, in recent years and months, they’ve started to restrict access to certain ITs, which isn’t a good look.
I like the look of AJB’s fees for holding and buying / selling ETFs and ITs, but I was wondering if you might be able to elaborate on how you’ve found their customer service / responsiveness generally, the ease of using their website and its functionality, the ease of transfer in (for an in specie transfer) and the available ETF / IT range?
Many thanks in advance and much obliged for your help.
@Jon: Very similar re InvestEngine. I’m afraid their user forums do them no favours and I felt it wasn’t worth the worry. However, we have ISAs with IE for a nephew and niece to invest small amounts in VHVG to teach the investing lessons which I wish I had received. My father invested in single stocks for decades and always ended up with pennies for every pound – until, in his eighties, I introduced him to Fundsmith and then the S&P 500 index. He found the results hard to believe.
Great work keeping the small investor up to date
I particularly like the responses then generated by posters -I feel it keeps me in the loop re the constantly evolving financial situations of these platforms
xxd09
@Delta Hedge – Hi yes I’ll certainly tell you of my experience but I’m no expert, not as experienced in investment matters as you are, although do have a few brokers.
I agree with you about HL – and they have been really good for me. I use just for etfs in ISA which is capped at £45/year and really good for GIA/trading account as no custody fees although I don’t use that just because I don’t want the faff with ERI on etfs in taxable accounts – so I just stick to unit trust funds in taxable accounts (with other brokers where fees are cheaper) then only have funds to navigate on tax returns – otherwise with a few brokers it just would be a bit of a pain. I also agree with you that although HL customer service for me has been fine, it did used to be better – has dropped a bit but still up there with the best, for me also Interactive Investor are generally very good, and like HL, not waiting very long on phone to get through and usually answer your query without trouble.
As regards AJB – my fees are £42/yr in ISA with £5 dealing charge which is same for etfs/ITs/shares. I’ve found them generally pretty good – sort of in the same ballpark pretty much as iweb really but not in the top echelon like HL or ii (in my experience) but not too far behind. You sometimes wait a bit longer to get through (although not that long really in the scheme of things) and mostly customer service is okay/reasonable. I’ve only had a few contacts with them over a few years now but all I would say is that, similar to iweb, if the question is a little more involved – not just the usual easy straight forward stuff, that they are like pre-programmed to answer, then sometimes you may need to question them/call again and on one occasion complained on phone and eventually got there in the end.
I’ve only done one transfer in with AJB of a personal pension (from Aviva who were terrible/had many complaints with them). This was done quickly by AJB within a couple of weeks, which considering Aviva was one of the parties in the transaction, it was a complete surprise to me but then I had complained a lot about them. AJB could not do mine in-specie though so had to be done in cash. I believe in-specie can often take a bit longer than cash with most brokers due to need to re-register investments.
I think for just £42/yr for me AJB are good and I can’t expect a champagne service for lemonade money as they say! I find their online web account is good to use/pretty functional and seem to carry plenty of etfs for me to invest – but I’m just a simple buy/hold tracker investor so nothing too quirky/complex. And I don’t hold funds with these as they charge 0.25% custody fee. I mainly keep funds in iweb/ii.
I don’t know anything much about their ITs or individual shares as I don’t invest in those myself. However I don’t know how much you have seen of their website – but if you haven’t then take a look. If you choose the “Funds” tab/link at top of the website home page, you will see under the heading “exchange traded funds” that there is an etf screener where you can look up all the etfs they do. Similarly under “investment trusts” there is an IT screener as well with it looks like something around 380 ITs – not sure how good that is compared to say, HL? Also at top of homepage under “shares & markets” tab – there is an investment search and share screener as well. You don’t need to log in/have an account (same as with HL) – you can just view what investments they offer on their website. This is usually possible with many of the larger platforms/brokers but not always with the smaller/less established ones. However even some that don’t (although not all), they will let you open an account free of charge to look at investments offered and then you can decide. Many of them will not charge you anything unless you invest/deposit money in so account remains free if unused. If you’re not happy with that you can always just close it down again if you don’t want to invest, many have told me. (However many told me if “inactivity charges” were ever to be introduced, they would have to inform you first so you have chance to close before charges incurred. So personally I’ve got some accounts open that never been used.)
If you want more info on AJB just type “AJ Bell reviews” into google and loads of stuff comes up to read about them. Generally they seem highly rated by Which? and Trustpilot 4.8/5 score. Also if you haven’t seen Banker on Wheels website – they have loads stuff on comparing/rating brokers – you can find it here: https://www.bankeronwheels.com/category/brokers/
You may need to register with email (free) to read some of the articles as I have. This rates many UK brokers (not all) – and not always UK brokers as not a UK based website. Rates them for safety i.e. whether a Tier 1 or 2 broker and why etc. AJB are rated Tier 1.
Is quite useful info and safety is something I always consider before investing (especially where account will likely be above the FSCS limit). I also look on Companies House at their accounts for the last couple years or so. I’m no accountant but it gives you a feel for how profitable/how much debt/assets and generally how professional they are. I must say when I last looked at AJB’s accounts they looked very professional/large outfit and profitable so not too many worries about them personally.
Hope this is useful. All the best.
@Jon: that’s super helpful and very much appreciated. Thank you.
I think that the in specie transfer issue could be crucial. Over time the market goes up. The longer the time period the more likely the chance of gain. So having to go to cash with an ISA and/or SIPP in order to do a transfer is likely to be a loosing proposition over a platform transfer process lasting several weeks to a couple of months.
I’ll make enquiries with AJB and see what they can do.
ii would be my second choice.
Having transferred my SIPP to ii a few years ago HL tempted me back nearly a year ago with a £1,500 incentive, but that was before I knew that they were selling themselves to PE with all the debt burden for the platform which that entails.
I need peace of mind that my platform’s not going to fold. I had that with HL previously, and ii too, but not now with HL.
Maybe I’m being a bit paranoid here but, having seen how PE takeovers often seem to pan out in the end, I feel that it’s probably a case of being better safe than sorry.
@Delta Hedge – Thank you! Appreciate it.
Re: brokers – just to say that Jon’s experience chimes with my own. I’d rate HL as top notch for customer service and AJB as perfectly satisfactory for the money. I did have one beef with them years ago over a transfer and they sorted it out for me. Other than that, the site is decent and they provide the bells and whistles I’m looking for e.g. decent drawdown options, online trades for index-linked gilts, excellent choice of index trackers. Overall, I’m very happy with them.
What was your experience of ii like?
@Delta Hedge – I agree in-specie transfer is generally best so remains invested and don’t lose out with any gains in meantime. AJB do that as long as they offer them – it’s just mine was a old style personal pension and so obvs couldn’t do those funds for me – not that I wanted Aviva’s shoddy funds anyway – never seemed to do much good!
It’s a shame about HL but I’m still sticking with my account with them at the moment. In time will just maybe reduce holding a bit, by doing a partial transfer out, to keep a bit nearer to the FSCS 85K limit then at least you would be protected and still get that back if anything was to happen – I’m only about 30K above it at the minute anyhow. HL are massive so couldn’t really see them going bust but with P/E it’s an unknown really, well they will only likely get worse for customer service and everything, that’s for sure, as they slash costs, cut everything to the bone and load up on debt, probably (bit like the Tories did to the country during their reign and Labour probably now as well) – but I’m not completely doing a runner from them just yet, maybe a bit premature! See how things go and review it.
@Delta Hedge my SIPP move from HL to II, ETFs and cash, some in drawdown some not, nearly complete – started about 3 weeks ago. Another SIPP move I arranged for someone from HL to AJB, all in funds, now completed in just under 3 weeks. Also ISA ETFs HL to AJB took 3 weeks over Christmas. All were in-specie moves of popular trackers. Both sides gave updates automatically. Happy days.
@Onedrew
Another vote for iWeb from me.
I have accounts with iWeb, AJBell ii, and HL and would rank them like that in descending order of quality of service.
I did have quite a sum in Funds with AJBell and was getting caned in fees (their Funds fees are uncapped) – threatened to move and they have now capped my fees at £25/mth. Still more than iWeb but I haven’t carried through my threat yet because it’s probably still worth it for the platform diversification.
x-o have just told me that my ISA will be transferred to Interactive Investor along with the accounts of most of their execution-only clients. They have dropped any exit fees, and holders can choose to go elsewhere. Disappointed.
I see HSBC has teamed up with Interactive Brokers to launch a platform called WorldTrader in UAE (and subsequently I believe across Asia).
Has anyone heard if WorldTrader will come to the UK?
https://www.hsbc.ae/investments/products/worldtrader/
I recently switched from Vanguard to Lloyds for buying mainly LifeStrategy funds. It has worked out well, so far.
Not sure why Interactive Investor is being recommended as an alternative if cost is the main focus – they seem relatively expensive.
I use Revolut for other purposes, and I’ve now started trying out small investments in Revolut’s investment platform.
https://help.revolut.com/help/wealth/stocks/trading-stocks/trading-fees/what-fees-will-i-be-charged-for-my-trading/
I honestly don’t like Invest Engine interface — forcing everything to be in an “portfolio” — I just want to buy and sell MMF like ETFs without cognitive overhead — plus their money settlement and money transfer times end up being very long.
I’d have used FreeTrade if they had fractional ETF shares.
@ADT – Great point about ii. I should have said they’re a good alternative for funds in SIPPs. Have updated the post. Cheers for flagging!
Thanks @TA. Great update to a fantastic and peerless resource. I’m sure anyone sufficiently hobbyist to be in the collective would appreciate, but for those of us still accumulating through salary sacrifice, some platforms offer preferential rates and deals through the employer, which could bump them up the table and would be well worth anyone with such access exploring as part of the mix, particularly if such rates continue to be honoured into retirement.
Interesting to read people’s thoughts on HL. I was unaware of the sale to PE until after I opened an account with them as a third S&S ISA. I also hold accounts at Halifax and AJBell mainly investing in ETF’s and Vanguard funds.
I’m now questioning my choice and whilst my balance with them is relatively low I’m considering other options.
@Rosario – what is the main worry with the HL sale to PE?
I have an account with HL and will continue to do so. The only concerns most have is that:
(a) they will make cuts and the customer service will go down the drain
and
(b) they will load up with debt and may go bust at some point
Firstly, I cannot see any evidence that customer service has yet been impacted. When I contact them they are generally very good and certainly better than those you mention – AJB/Halifax as I have accounts with both (well I have iWeb but Halifax/iWeb are the same company/group). I also have accounts with quite a few others – including Fidelity, Vanguard, Moneyfarm, Interactive Investor among others and I would say HL are the best followed by ii so unless they get a lot worse then many of the others then who are you going to switch to who is actually any better? I personally would not sell out with them until it happens as it is jumping the gun somewhat. (Obviously they are expensive for funds but that is a different question and if you stick with ETFs etc. in an ISA they are good value at just £3.75/month (£45 per year) similar to AJB and you get a decent online account – not an older mickey mouse one like with some others.)
The worst I’ve had some dealings with are InvestEngine – no real customer service/hopeless and Moneyfarm who are equally as useless and Vanguard – particularly so for transfers. Some don’t even operate via phone – just rubbish messaging/chat only.
Secondly, if you are worried about them getting into debt, and at some point financial difficulties, they are a huge company but if it concerns then just don’t go too much above the 85K FSCS. Then if the worst happens you would be protected. You say you only have a relatively low amount with them anyway so why worry? I have about 120K with them at the minute and I’m not worried – I won’t be cutting it back but I won’t be throwing loads more in either with them – just in case. But TBH, I’d be much more worried if I was in above my head with the likes of InvestEngine/Moneyfarm etc. who already have poor customer service and are not well established. Some of these newer digital new kids on the block are already in debt/not making profit and losses only covered by their directors and some do crowdfunding (see their accounts online) so they could go pop at any point – and without too much warning, whereas HL would first have to get into loads of debt whereas they are very profitable and well established.
But even if you are invested with the sh*t service/low or no fee types you still should be fine if you keep to the FSCS limit – even though the incompetent service gets increasingly frustrating!
@ST
Thanks for the reply. My main concern is financial stability. You’re right there are others which are far worse currently but the whole reason for choosing them was that I thought of them as a well established robust option.
I’ve only this year switched my monthly contributions to them, hence the low balance, however likely contribute to the ISA limit each year so get upto the FSCS limit within 3-4 years. Other accounts are at / over this.
Feels like its something just to monitor until approaching the limit at HL.
I don’t see how it’s possible to keep some investments below the fscs limit! For example I have a SIPP (with HL) which is well over the £85k fscs limit as you would expect for many of us. It would be totally impractical (and expensive) to split the fund over multiple platforms.
It’s tricky alright. Still, £85k is probably an overly conservative limit to impose upon yourself in the majority of cases.
If FSCS compensation is triggered it’s more likely because there’s a shortfall between recoverable assets and monies owned to clients. You’d have to be very unlucky to face a situation where there is nothing left at all.
Assuming the shortfall scenario, your £85k limit is required to cover your share of the discrepancy rather than the entire value of your account.
I wouldn’t want to leave millions in the hands of one or two brokers but not a problem I have to worry about anyway 🙂
I’m considering dipping my toe in the water of VCTs. The amount, if any, will be modest. Are there a couple of brokers who might be best?
@Chris Moore – just to explain as I don’t think you understand the whole of what I meant. I never said or meant that it’s best to keep below 85K all the time or for everybody as it depends on circumstances. It is clearly not practical or possible for everybody. I only said that for those such as @Rosario who are worried about HL’s financial stability (since recent sale to private equity) that you could limit your risk to this issue by keeping it nearer to that mark (or more realistically to within a margin which is tolerable for you based on your net worth and amount you could “afford” to lose if sh*t hit the fan.)
As I said I have a fairly small margin over that with HL at the minute and I’m not worried at all at that level (or even a sum above that) BUT now they have gone PE route, I would be more concerned if I had say, 250K or more with them as personally it would not be a risk worth taking for me – I don’t wanna lose 165K overnight. Just helps you sleep, that kind of thing. I would have preferred, like most, if HL had stayed as PLC with the publicly available accounts and such like and the greater scrutiny and I would then likely have invested more with them.
However I definitely wouldn’t have much more than the 85K with the likes of InvestEngine (if I was ever to invest with them that is – I have an account but ultimately decided not to invest anything as I didn’t like their attitude/lack of customer service). The risk of them going t*ts up with their year on year huge losses/no profitability and poor customer service is far greater than anything likely at HL I feel, certainly at this time. This also applies to many of the other less well established digital platforms who seem to operate on a shoestring. They just seem to gain large market share mainly due to investor greed – those who have a huge desire to not pay hardly a penny in fees – but in reality are quite foolhardy and are the ones most likely to then complain loudly “poor me” and come well unstuck if/when they fail. Paying a reasonable and competitive level of fees that can actually sustain platforms to stay around long enough to maintain competition (which in itself lowers fees) AND all the costs of employing decent staff who will offer good customer service/a decent efficient transfers service, as well as having a good online account experience (not just App based) with a reasonable amount of investments on there (not just handful of ultra basic ones) so that any decent platform can actually make some profit at the end of the day – what business is going to survive or have motive to carry on long term without? Without competition we all pay higher fees in the end and nobody benefits if platforms go out of business – investors lose out, businesses lose out, employees lose out and bail outs often end up costing the taxpayer either directly/indirectly – we all pay in the end, bit like when the banks went bust – it’s cost us all long term.
You say it’s impractical and expensive to have more accounts. I have many platforms with Sipps/Isas/GIA investments – some 10 at the last count (well 12 actually but 2 aren’t currently used) and I don’t find it in any way impractical to just log in now and then, get a statement and do the odd transfer. (I do have to do tax returns every year for my GIA investments/savings and other income. The worst of it is just doing CGT returns and calculations but that is because of GIA holdings and not the number of accounts I hold – that doesn’t make a jot of difference.) Having more accounts isn’t really an issue and is just a poor excuse for apathy, IMO. I have one investment property (apart from my own house) and this takes up ten times more time and effort/stress than all my investment accounts and pensions put together. So much so I’m now seriously considering selling up when the existing tenants leave. It’s a damn hassle for all it’s worth. I don’t want that anymore.
Expensive you say, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be that much more expensive if you choose the right platforms and investments held on them. With my platforms, the very highest fee I pay currently is 0.25% custody on funds but only on the one platform and I am actively trying to reduce that down first and then I may withdraw from it completely (but also am careful due to CGT implications ) but I do think it is very low risk as it is with a huge high street bank and very unlikely to go bust anytime soon, if ever. I also have an account with another large bank who I would consider low risk and whilst they have increased their fees for the majority, not for me, as I was offered a special deal because I have a fair bit with them (and had even more at one time) – they kept my fees at a lower rate on both funds and etfs/shares. So loyalty does pay sometimes – I get a very low risk account at a cheaper rate and I would say an average level of customer service – not exceptional but not poor either – they do what they say they will do and have a telephone service but not the best online account. Vanguard is my next most expensive account @ 0.15% so £150 per year per 100K but then the rest of my other accounts are very low fee really and so averaged over them all I would say I get low fees overall for very low risk of some catastrophe that could wipe me out pretty much if I had it all concentrated in a small number – that’s a good deal to me.
I personally don’t want “no fees” and “high risk” and then come a cropper, as I doubt many do, unless they don’t have much to lose. I don’t think I’m in the wealthy set at all but I have enough and should have for the rest of my life if I don’t do anything stupid, and by that I mean don’t do anything rash/make any stupid/risky investments like putting my eggs in just a couple of baskets. I prefer mine spread across quite a few where risk is lower. That’s because I now have a life in my 5th decade where I don’t work anymore and live off what I’ve accumulated/invested. I adore not working – probably more so than anything – I get up what time I want and basically most days do what I want all day with no stress (apart from the bit of admin with investments and looking after my house – and that damn investment property) and can within reason take all the holidays/travel I want/eat out and go where I want. Okay so I don’t have homes all around the world or live in Sandbanks or drive a Ferrari but I live well and don’t have a boss breathing down my neck and so don’t answer to anybody – that’s worth its weight in gold alone. That’s how I want it to stay for the rest of my days (apart from the investment property which I’m looking to offload before long). So I think choosing to keep many of your assets across just a minimal number of platforms, especially potentially more risky ones, is a fool’s errand.
You have to consider just how impractical and expensive it would be for you if your platform went bust and, for example, you had say £500K invested, your assets couldn’t be recovered and it just fell to the FSCS and so you lost £415,000 – would be pretty impractical and expensive then and potentially a lost retirement – probably less thinking about FIRE and more about employer “REHIRE” (me please). I’ve heard many talk about having these kind of high figures on just one platform (and sometimes a lot more) when they aren’t particularly that wealthy enough to cope with a t*ts up scenario. I don’t think this is practical and could turn out to be mega expensive compared to a relatively tiny bit more paid in fees which is not probably even going to impact your life at all long term in the vast scheme of things. Of course if you have quite a few millions you will likely have much more with any one platform (but still risk calculated and split between a few) as it’s all relative and you could then possibly afford the “consequences” at least to some of it. Anyhow you would quickly run out of platforms to invest otherwise if you didn’t.
You may have the “won’t happen to me guv” sort of attitude but however unlikely, it has happened in the past and can again and nobody much, including the Govt, will help you when you are forced to live in a cardboard box in Jaywick (sorry for any offence if anyone reading this is unfortunate enough to live there but I doubt it is an investing hub) since you were foolish enough to put all your eggs in just 1 or 2 or even 3 baskets. I assess and review my platforms now and then in how they are doing financially, how my funds have grown and whether I think there is now too big a risk for me at my level of investment and net worth. If so I move them on and I have just done so lately with 2 in-specie transfers. I try to do as cost effectively as possible but sometimes you have to pay a little for safety so not to lose BIG in the end. It’s the long game we’re playing after all.
I wouldn’t do this every time a platform strays over 85K as I said – that isn’t feasible or sensible or practical but largely it depends on how risky the platform is and also how badly you would be affected if they went down with your assets and you could only recover the FSCS 85K – which is relative to your overall net worth – as in if you have 10m and lose £415,000 – it’s not good news but not likely to mean fish fingers for life, whereas you have just 1m or so and lose the same, it’s a car crash that you’re unlikely to ever recover from.
I think investing is about taking a calculated risk and not an exercise in stupidity. It takes a long time to earn it with much toil and stress on the way up and it can so easily be lost in a heartbeat – not just to scams but also by making irrational decisions.
Wise quotes such as “The art is not in making money, but in keeping it” and “A fool and his money are soon parted” do come to mind.
I also think these are useful quotes:
– “The safest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it in your pocket”
……………………………….and
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”
@ST – I think I understood perfectly what you said but thanks for the lecture. Didn’t quite manage to get to the end but I got the gist.
I neither have the time nor interest in managing 10+ platforms (who does?).
Much preferred the Accumulator’s response.