Hargreaves and Lansdown Review

jamesblue

Barclays have been nagging me for ages to do a review of my finanaces, which i have finally do with them, but i also did with Hargreaves and Lansdown at the same time, as a comparision.

I like the advise from both, which take a cautious risk and move my Cash ISA (40K) into a Share ISA Fund like Jupiter Merlin Income Portfolio. Which doing the research, looks good to me.

My question is, has anyone ever had any issue with Hargreaves, because their initial charge for the investment 1% of the investment, and Barclays will be 5.25%?

And if I do not use Hargreaves advisor service and pick one myself, then initial fees can be as low as 0% or 0.5% on most of their funds.



Thanks

stator

I used Hargreaves Lansdown for the S&S ISA that I opened in 2008. I bought the minimum amount of £1k into an ethical investment fund. Their website is good, it's easy to track the value of your investments. I then sold my investment and withdrew all the cash a few months ago. The process went fine and they transferred my money by BACS for free. Everything went smoothly for me and I didn't have any problems with them at any stage. Obviously my experience is quite limited, I didn't do much, but my opinion of them is quite good. They send you a publication in the post quite often with lots of application forms etc for the funds they are currently recommending. To be honest I never really paid much attention to this, I didn't take any of their investment advice so I can't say how good it is.

Rollinghome

H-L administration is excellent. The only problem I've ever had was when they recently incorrectly quoted the dilution levy on an OEIC; they promptly gave me the option to reverse the deal when I pointed the error out.

The only downside is that you need to be very careful about relying on their investment recommendations. They can be a tad unreliable and appear to be heavily influenced by the commission or marketing fees they receive. As always, you're better off relying on your own research.

dunstonh

Have you thought about using a local IFA? At the moment you are looking at a limited panel bank sales force vs an online IFA service. If you want local contact but whole of market access than a local IFA should also be considered/

HL's advice arm doesnt normally price well for small amounts like £40k. Although if the advice was to use Jupiter merlin income portfolio, then that would explain it as thats a lazy investor fund which requires no servicing. Its for providing a one-off service (known as transactional).

If you use the non-advice HL platform then its cheaper but you get no advice and lots of marketing (as you would expect from a product provider) and it will not be independent.

So, you really need to decide what you want and then pick the service that provides that.

jamesd

Much better to go with HL than Barclays. Both lower costs and a better range of investments.

wombat42_2

HL are a pain in the butt in some respects but still generally miles better than any of the companies i have invested through previously.

Primrose

I bank with Barclays and also invest via H-L. I have never once gone to Barclays for investment advice as I believe most banks have a far too narrow range of investments. Also, I absolutely refuse to invest with any provider who does not offer a telephone service where I can pick up the phone on every occasion and speak to a real live person, which does happen with H-L. I also find their customer service and administration very efficient. If you are happy to pick your own funds according to your own investment stragegy you get a much wider choice with H-L than Barclays. An independent IFA would probably give you more personal service but it depends on how much you are investing and if it's only a very small amount, it probably would not be worth your or their while.

jamesblue

dunstonh wrote: »

Have you thought about using a local IFA? At the moment you are looking at a limited panel bank sales force vs an online IFA service. If you want local contact but whole of market access than a local IFA should also be considered/

HL's advice arm doesnt normally price well for small amounts like £40k. Although if the advice was to use Jupiter merlin income portfolio, then that would explain it as thats a lazy investor fund which requires no servicing. Its for providing a one-off service (known as transactional).

If you use the non-advice HL platform then its cheaper but you get no advice and lots of marketing (as you would expect from a product provider) and it will not be independent.

So, you really need to decide what you want and then pick the service that provides that.

The HL Advice take about 3 weeks to come through, because they are looking at my pensions. At this moment I think i might just go for a HL Multi Manager Balanced fund, which is 0% initial fee

Funnily enough there would have been one i would have used locally, but I am self employed computer technician and the guy rang me for an emergency to recover data, which I did and got paid straight away. A week a later did some more work, about 3 months ago, still waiting to get paid, he continually having staff storages, cheque is in the post etc, etc. So I think if he cannot pay his suppliers, and one of his is specialist service is business management/advice, then i better give him a miss.

There is another popular one, but i know one of my customers had major issues getting information from them. With the HL Vantage service at least you can login and see what is happening.

I have asked one of my other customers, which uses another local IFA to say what they think about them.


Thanks for you advise.

jamesblue

jamesd wrote: »

Much better to go with HL than Barclays. Both lower costs and a better range of investments.

Even if i do not take their advice service, i think their HL Multi Balanced Fund looks good. As someone said the Jupiter is the easy option, at the least the HL Multi take a look at multi funds.

Plus Barclays Fees would be £2818 and if i go for the same fund or the above fund from HL, it would be free. I think it is a no brainer.


Thanks for the advice

jamesblue

jamesd wrote: »

Much better to go with HL than Barclays. Both lower costs and a better range of investments.

Looking at their HL Vantage website it is really easy to use, and very easy to find loads of information of the funds.


Thanks

dunstonh

At this moment I think i might just go for a HL Multi Manager Balanced fund, which is 0% initial fee

Which isnt great, isnt cheap but ideally suited to the "lazy" investor.

There is another popular one, but i know one of my customers had major issues getting information from them. With the HL Vantage service at least you can login and see what is happening.

You do realise that you dont invest with the IFA. The IFA chooses the platform/provider to use based on the criteria given by the client. If the person wanted online access then all they had to do is let the IFA know and the iFA would then eliminate those that dont give it.

Even if i do not take their advice service, i think their HL Multi Balanced Fund looks good. As someone said the Jupiter is the easy option, at the least the HL Multi take a look at multi funds.

I would take the Jupiter fund over the HL fund. The HL fund is expensive and inconsistent (probably as its been at the higher end of the risk scale compared to funds in the sector).

Looking at their HL Vantage website it is really easy to use, and very easy to find loads of information of the funds.

Its a good platform and very useful for those wanting to DIY. It wont be as cheap after 2012 when platforms unbundle the charges but thats a few years away yet. However, be wary on the "information". HL in respect of their platform are not acting as IFAs. They are acting as a product provider selling their product. No different to Aviva, Friends Provident or Scottish Widows selling their product. They have a reputation of marketing funds they want to sell and remember that fund houses do pay the platform.