Low cost Stocks & Shares (Investment) ISAs: The Best Currently Available List!

JamesU · 12 May 2012 at 9:44PM

samizdat wrote: »

As I see it, the main attraction here is that there is Direct Market Access (order book trading), which up to now has only been available, within an ISA, at iDealing. (Interactive Brokers offers it, but does not offer an ISA, only a SIPP or taxable account. Saxo Bank's other platform (Saxo Trader) also offers it, but again no ISA.)..........There is no exit fee, whereas iDealing charges £60 per account.......I have always been put off iDealing by their exit fee. It's probably not that material in the grand scheme of things, but I just hate that kind of fee - a sting in the tail, and a reward for failure..........There is also something of a shoestring feel to the whole iDealing operation, which I know is true of many of the discount brokers mentioned here, but much less true of Saxo Bank.

Been with i-Dealing around 12yrs and have found them excellent. From memory, no exit fee when they started out, I also get irritated with exit fees from any provider, but it is a pretty trivial issue really. Their annual cost has been £20/yr per account throughout and the £9.90 on EU/US trading is pretty competitive. For sure a no frills service even with the revamp, but a very good one really. I particularly like their attention to etfs.

Was amused when you mentioned i-Dealing are starting up in France. Earlier in the week I fancied picking up edf and guess what? trading that stock was blocked on my UK account! Had no time to check out the reason, but find it quite ironic really. :laugh:

JamesU

samizdat · 13 May 2012 at 11:35AM

Thanks JamesU. I suppose what really annoys me about the exit fee is that iDealing sort of encourage you to open two accounts, because that way they allow you to pay the annual fee on the ISA from the standard account, which is more tax efficient. But then you are in for £120 of exit fees if you don't like the service, or just prefer another service.

It's not as if you can avoid the fee by just leaving a quid in the account, because then you pay inactivity fees.

I even asked them if they would waive the fee for me, but they said they wouldn't!

Call me stubborn (I know it's a failing of mine), but I just don't like it.

In France, they are offering a whole year of commission-free trading to new customers - but only to permanent residents of France, so incompatible with ISA accounts!

Be careful what you wish for with EdF - I used to cover the stock professionally, and it is an incredibly opaque institution, heavily influenced by politics, and involved in nuclear energy, one of the most controversial industries of all time!

max11 · 18 May 2012 at 11:45AM

Special_Saver2 wrote: »

BestInvest Select Service

If you hold funds that do not pay a commission or shares then you will be charged £50 + VAT per year.

Sorry, what does "pay a commission " mean?

I am thinking of switching from Best Invest (cofunds) to BestInvest Select

BLB53 · 2 June 2012 at 9:06AM

With the introduction of £20 per qtr fees, the entry for iii now needs to be updated.

Also Selftrade have changed their fees from £35 qtr to £8.25.

Special_Saver2 · 2 June 2012 at 10:12AM

max11 wrote: »

Sorry, what does "pay a commission " mean?

I am thinking of switching from Best Invest (cofunds) to BestInvest Select

Most unit trust / OEIC managers pay a commission to the platform but some of the funds with a really low annual management charge pay little or nothing to the platform.

Thanks BLB53, I will be doing the June update for this thread some time this weekend. I am glad that I did not join up to iii this time last year - the introduction of £80 per year fees must be very annoying for iii customers.

SS2

Special_Saver2 · 4 June 2012 at 6:26PM

I have carried out the June update for this thread. The changes are:

- JPJShare.com deleted from posts 2 and 3; according to their website, they lost £620,000 in 2011 and the business is closing with existing customers being moved over to The Share Centre Ltd and no new account applications from 18th May 2012

- iii added to post 2 because they will be rebating 100% of their commission from 1st July 2012 (but their transaction charges make them uncompetitive when compared to Cavendish Online)

- iii moved from post 3 (shares, no annual fee section) to post 4 (shares, annual fee section) and details of charges updated (effective 1st July 2012)

- added link to the current iii introducing quarterly £20 charge thread to both entries on iii

- Selftrade charges in post 4 updated - standard £35 charge now changed to an inactivity charge which can be avoided and details added of their £100 rebate of transfer out charges when transferring from another broker added

- added a comment to the BestInvest and Hargreaves Lansdown entries that they can be a good choice if you want the Vanguard Lifestyle funds, with a link to a relevant page on monevator.com

- there are now lots of providers in post 2 (OEICs / unit trusts) so I have subdivided them into providers that generally provide the best deals (currently Cavendish Online and Alliance Trust), providers that provide the best deals in some circumstances, and providers that are good enough to get on the list but are consistently beaten by one of the other providers

SS2

kingshuk · 4 June 2012 at 7:03PM

Hello SS2,
Thanks a lot for this very useful thread and taking the time to keep this updated. I am an iii customer since 2008 and now after their recent introduction of annual charge looking for a better option like many others in this forum.

I was wondering whether there is any reason why post #3 does not list iWeb (Sorry, can't post link since I am a new user) under "Low Cost Planned Purchases, No Annual Fee".

They seem to have a charge structure similar to old iii and uses the Halifax platform that iii used before. Regular investment costs £2 (instead of iii's £1.5). On the negative side I see their transfer out fee is much higher (£25 per investment + £50 fees + VAT).

Has anyone used them before? I did a search in this forum and elsewhere but couldn't find any good recent reviews.

grey_gym_sock · 4 June 2012 at 7:12PM

good work. 2 minor corrections:

in post 4, iii still says "[FONT=Times New<br /> Roman]can invest in unit trusts or OEICs with up to 100% initial commission discount but no rebate of trail commission" - no longer correct - it could say "see post 2".

in post 3, TD Waterhouse are now called TD Direct.
[/FONT]

Special_Saver2 · 4 June 2012 at 8:00PM

Thanks a lot, I will make those corrections and add iWeb. For post 2, I am also going to add Massow's paymemy.com (rebates 80% commission on OEICs / unit trusts and other investments) and InvestSmart (rebates 50% commission, offers a "free" annual review of your investments but I cannot see what happens if you want advice; I am not sure but I think you have to pay for that separately from what I am reading at the moment). I cannot tell which platforms either of those companies support. I have to go right now but I will search the MSE forum for those companies and add a further update later.

SS2

Edit: Okay, I have added the information that I have found on these three extra providers and corrected the iii entry.

snowgo · 7 June 2012 at 11:08AM

I notice that you've linked my post of April 2011 to the x-o summary. I'm still with x-o and can say that their service has definately improved since my earlier post.

Their interface has significantly improved. Layout is the same, but columns no longer run one into another and are quite readable. They also seem to have sorted the problems with errors in quoted prices. I've been able to get them on the phone when needed and no complaints about customer service. So whereas I'd previously have said avoid, it's now a thumbs up.

Low cost Stocks & Shares (Investment) ISAs: The Best Currently Available List!

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