Changes ahoy at the HSBC Global Investment Centre
Comments
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This is true for the All Share tracker, but I had a look for the Pacific, European and American C class trackers and they do not seem to be available from iii. (The web address for the webpage for the All Share tracker uses the Citibank code for this fund, so I substituted the Citibank codes for the other trackers. This gives an Interactive Investor webpage for the relevant C class trackers, but there is no Buy button.)Interactive Investor offer the clean C class trackerskoru0 -
This is true for the All Share tracker, but I had a look for the Pacific, European and American C class trackers and they do not seem to be available from iii. (The web address for the webpage for the All Share tracker uses the Citibank code for this fund, so I substituted the Citibank codes for the other trackers. This gives an Interactive Investor webpage for the relevant C class trackers, but there is no Buy button.)
Thanks. Ivanopinion commenting on monevator said the same thing towards the bottom of the comments of that article.
Although I am not sure how you can tell you can't buy. As if you go to the HSBC European Index C Accumulation page
http://www.iii.co.uk/investing/factsheet/G19E
there seems to be a button to click to buy but presumably if you click on buy and then log in a message pops up to say only kidding?I came, I saw, I melted0 -
Off-topic as I know nothing of the GIC, but the HSBC C classes are now available on TD Direct Investing, there's quite a range of them. As a 'bit of a test' I bought some of the FTSE 250 tracker yesterday and was just charged the published HSBC price for that day of 143.0 with no additional dealing fee. TD have a quarterly inactivity fee which you avoid if you have trades in the quarter, have a 'regular investing' version of the account, or have a portfolio valuation over 7.5k at the end of the quarter. For ISAs, they just have a flat annual fee which again you can avoid, if you're over a minimum valuation of 5.1k.
They also recently added a number of Vanguard funds that they didn't previously have, e.g. the Lifestrategy ones. They don't carry all the ones you might want (I couldn't find a Global Small Cap or Emerging) but having Lifestrategy is great.
I had previously just used TD for shares / ITs and presumed I'd need to keep using other places for a good range of funds. But perhaps not now?
Though I don't know how zero commission dealing and zero annual fee on a Vanguard or HSBC C fund is going to be sustainable for them, unless they effectively sulbsidise them with whatever they make on share dealing fees and 'low value/inactivity' fees from everyone else. Perhaps this would change after the platform review in a year or so? For RDR they did already change their fund charging structure to rebate 100% of trail (but make you pay them 0.35% back if the trail they give you is 0.5%+).
I've not really looked into their Funds offering before but it might be worth using in future - particularly if you can do regular monthly investing into a simple tracker for free! Seems like could be a loophole they'd look to shut down? Or if we all pile in, perhaps they'd use as a marketing point to get people in the door who might start buying shares or paying them inactivity fees at some point.0 -
Thanks. That is extremely interesting bowlhead.
I am going to have a close look at that myself.
I notice some of the HSBC tracker funds (probably historically the 0.25% amc versions) are in their top ten fund purchases.
http://www.tddirectinvesting.co.uk/tools-research/most-popular-funds/november-2012/
(TD Direct Investing gets a mention in Special Saver's brilliant thread see this post)I came, I saw, I melted0 -
I've always found TD to be pretty good in terms of their shares platform and the customer service is OK. But it does seem a little too good to be true to expect the pricing will last on super-cheap trackers. They brought their trail-commission rebate changes in quite a long way before 2013 RDR would have forced them to, though perhaps that was more to do with watching their competitors than watching the regulator. From that you could perhaps infer that they'll look to revisit their annual/platform fee structure before 2014 as well.
I've mentioned elsewhere that I also use SIPPdeal, who also carry HSBC C and a wider range of Vanguard. They've said that there won't be any changes to their pricing before 2014, which, as a cynic, I presume means there may well need to be a change in 2014 once platform review is concluded. They don't have an annual fee for holding shares or the higher paying funds, but they do have a 'custody fee' of £12.50+vat pq (£60pa) if you hold any structured products or funds which are outside the funds list. I already pay this fee because of a core Vanguard holding, so I could buy another Vanguard or HSBC C with them without any further increase to my annual costs, and improve my value for money.
However, the dowside of buying HSBC C or Vanguard with SIPPdeal is that they charge you a dealing fee on them just like they do with shares. This gives you a £9.99 hit on a buy or a sell; inconsequential on a £10k holding over 5-10 years, but is too expensive to invest at £500pm. Even if you wanted to rebalance out a couple of thousand once a year, you're paying half a percent to sell and the same again to rebuy something else. Their monthly investing option of £1.5 per trade doesn't count for any of these "non funds list" funds, so in practice they are ruled out for anything other than decent lump sums.0 -
Yes, the only way to tell is to click to buy and then login. If you do that with a fund they do offer, you will then be taken to a purchase page which is pre-populated with the name of the fund that you clicked on. If you do that with these new HSBC C class trackers, the purchase page has an empty field for the fund name, so you have to search, but if you type in HSBC European it just gives you the old fund classes and if you type in G19E, you get nothing.Although I am not sure how you can tell you can't buy. As if you go to the HSBC European Index C Accumulation page
http://www.iii.co.uk/investing/factsheet/G19E
there seems to be a button to click to buy but presumably if you click on buy and then log in a message pops up to say only kidding?koru0 -
Thanks for sharing your findings bowlhead99.bowlhead99 wrote: »Off-topic as I know nothing of the GIC, but the HSBC C classes are now available on TD Direct Investing, there's quite a range of them. As a 'bit of a test' I bought some of the FTSE 250 tracker yesterday and was just charged the published HSBC price for that day of 143.0 with no additional dealing fee. TD have a quarterly inactivity fee which you avoid if you have trades in the quarter, have a 'regular investing' version of the account, or have a portfolio valuation over 7.5k at the end of the quarter. For ISAs, they just have a flat annual fee which again you can avoid, if you're over a minimum valuation of 5.1k.
They also recently added a number of Vanguard funds that they didn't previously have, e.g. the Lifestrategy ones. They don't carry all the ones you might want (I couldn't find a Global Small Cap or Emerging) but having Lifestrategy is great.
I had previously just used TD for shares / ITs and presumed I'd need to keep using other places for a good range of funds. But perhaps not now?
Though I don't know how zero commission dealing and zero annual fee on a Vanguard or HSBC C fund is going to be sustainable for them, unless they effectively sulbsidise them with whatever they make on share dealing fees and 'low value/inactivity' fees from everyone else. Perhaps this would change after the platform review in a year or so? For RDR they did already change their fund charging structure to rebate 100% of trail (but make you pay them 0.35% back if the trail they give you is 0.5%+).bowlhead99 wrote: »I've always found TD to be pretty good in terms of their shares platform and the customer service is OK. But it does seem a little too good to be true to expect the pricing will last on super-cheap trackers. They brought their trail-commission rebate changes in quite a long way before 2013 RDR would have forced them to, though perhaps that was more to do with watching their competitors than watching the regulator. From that you could perhaps infer that they'll look to revisit their annual/platform fee structure before 2014 as well.
You're right, they do have a very attractive pricing structure at the moment, but I too believe they'll have to introduce additional fees in the near future.
I highlighted another couple of options in a recent thread...
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4159607Another other option is to invest in the funds directly:
http://www.assetmanagement.hsbc.com/uk/advisers/fund-range/index-trackers/literature.html
http://services.assetmanagement.hsbc.co.uk/site/media/pdf/professional_advisers/OEIC_and_ISA_and_PEP/oeic_app.pdf
My understanding is that by avoiding the use of a platform, it will be possible to maintain the current fee free pricing structure. Am I missing something here?
Aside from the inconvenience of not having online access for valuations and making trades, are there any other reasons to go through a platform?
I'm not sure whether this direct investment in the "dirty" trackers will continue, but worth considering perhaps?I'm starting to think that the most cost effective way will be to make regular purchases (quarterly) of a low cost ETF (e.g. https://www.vanguard.co.uk/documents/portal/factsheets/ftse-all-world-etf.pdf) through a low cost broker (e.g. £5.95 trading fee with X-O).
I still like this option, though it would require a bit of discipline to stick to the quarterly trades to give an annual charge of £24. However, for larger amounts of money, and with a TER of 0.25%, more frequent trading would probably still work out cheaper than holding a number of funds with a higher TER. I have given a link for the FTSE All-World Index ETF, but Vanguard also do a low cost FTSE-100 ETF (0.1% TER) which could be used to increase UK exposure (maybe substituting one quarterly purchase per year):
https://www.vanguard.co.uk/uk/mvc/investments/etf0 -
Just to update re TD Direct - sent out flyers today for their increased 2013 pricing and nothing that makes me need to switch as yet.
- ISA annual admin fee is unchanged and still waived if ISA is worth over £5100 in May
- non-ISA trading account annual admin fee now needs a portfolio value of £15000 instead of £7500 to avoid the inactivity charge for not doing a trade in a calendar quarter
, BUT if you also have a SIPP or ISA with them they will waive it:) (or if you have over have £10,000 of OEICs or UTs in it)
- frequent trader rates have tougher criteria (need 30 trades in last 3 months instead of 15 trades to get the 8.95 rate) although there is now a lower 5.95 rate if you do 60 trades a quarter. Fortunately online funds trades are still free (a charge has been introduced for phone trades) so this is only really a problem if you're a medium trader of shares/ITs/ETFs.
- international trades now have a £5 premium and have not lost the existing high FX charges
http://www.tddirectinvesting.co.uk/~/media/uk/pdf/rates-charges-addendum.ashx
Bottom line this does not seem bad for funds investors (still seems a competitive place to buy Vanguard or HSBC C). Really it just hurts investors using non-ISA accounts who are caught by the fee waiver threshold going from 7.5 to 15k and don't want to make a trade each quarter or have an ISA on the side to avoid the fees.
The fee waiver for trading each quarter looks at calendar quarters so you can sell something on 30 June and buy with the proceeds the next day to catch two quarters at once, or trade on 1 July and 30 December with over 180 days between trades, while still getting the waiver for each quarter.
Hope this helps0 -
This will often be true, but for any investor with a reasonably large amount invested, they should also be thinking about the size of any trail commission rebate. If TDD sells a completely clean version of the fund, then that's fine, but if the fund class still includes platform commission, TDD do not rebate this, whereas other platforms often do (ATS and iii). If you can get an extra 0.25% rebate with another platform, it might be worth going with that other platform, even if you have to pay an annual fee and/or dealing charges.bowlhead99 wrote: »Bottom line this does not seem bad for funds investors (still seems a competitive place to buy Vanguard or HSBC C). Really it just hurts investors using non-ISA accounts who are caught by the fee waiver threshold going from 7.5 to 15k and don't want to make a trade each quarter or have an ISA on the side to avoid the fees.koru0 -
Sure, my comment "this does not seem bad for funds investors" was simply the funds investors' position before/after TD price change - rather than whether TD's general funds offering was a good or bad product compared to the others out there.
With their current structure TD seem a good choice for investors of clean funds like HSBC C which had been the subject of a lot of this thread. If you're using funds which are headline more expensive but commission paying, your mileage my vary.
And obviously if TD currently have an income stream from platform fees which they don't fully rebate, and they lose some or all of this in 2014 or beyond, then they'll have to tweak their fee structure again to maintain profitability. This might mean the window to access HSBC C et al at low/no cost is not a particularly wide one as I suggested earlier0
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