Dithering about!! - which is best provider

rockrat

ok, i have been readiing and reading and reading for weeks and weeks now, and posted a few times for help and clarification on how i can best invest £20k in ISA's.

I now know excatly what i want to do, I want to try both funds and shares investing.

i know everyone has personal favourits when it come to providers and dealing platforms etc, but i am hoping you guys can help with a few simple answers based on the cold hard facts, as i am got myself in a right muddle wheere i feel i cant "see the wood for the trees" anymore simply because i have been looking too hard.

so, here goes.

if i said we were to choose between HL, iii and selftrade.
i want 2 x ISA's (me and the Mrs)

Which provider has the lowest fees overall (long term thinking)
Which provider has the easiest platform to use
Which provider fits the MSE principles best (you guys know what i mean by that)

help me choose please, 'cos i have been dancing around this for weeks now confusing myself.

(ps - i dont mind if the conclusion is x is better for funds and x is better for shares if thats thhe reality, though a single solution is preferrable)

rockrat

bump, please

KingL

selftrade is £41+ a year to use and £10 per holding to leave

leahciM

rockrat wrote: »

if i said we were to choose between HL, iii and selftrade.
i want 2 x ISA's (me and the Mrs)

Which provider has the lowest fees overall (long term thinking)
Which provider has the easiest platform to use
Which provider fits the MSE principles best (you guys know what i mean by that)

Can only speak for iii, but to answer your questions one by one:

Fees;
iii doesn't charge any admin fees for its ISA, and has a nice portfolio builder that charges £1.50 per trade (to buy) which is good for building up a strong diversified portfolio in some of the larger, more stable stocks.

Other than that it's £10 to sell and £10 instant trade.

There's no inactivity fee either.

I've only just starting trading tracker funds with iii and don't feel that I could explain it well enough from my experience to give you a balanced response.

Ease of use:
the iii platform is a bit tricky to be honest. You get two different sites to log into but once you get used to it, it's not too bad. When I had problems setting up (which were my fault) they guys on the phone at iii were really helpful.

Which provider fits into MSE principles best:
no inactivity fees and a decent platform to build a diversified portfolio with low buying costs makes iii a good one for me.


This is all just anecdotal from me though and I'm sure some of the more expert people on the site will be able to give you stronger arguments for and against.

Good luck.

Reaper

If you are willing to split then of the ones listed I would say HL for funds and iii for shares.

As well as discounting the initial fund charge HL will also give you a small rebate on the annual charges of most funds making it the best choice.

The reason HL is not quite so good for shares is you pay an extra 0.5% + VAT charge on things that don't pay then ongoing commission (such as shares and investment trusts), though it is capped at £200 + VAT pa.

Of course if your plan is to do, say, 90% funds and 10% shares then you might just decide to not to faff about spliting it up and accept you will just pay a bit extra.