Alternative to iii

boltneck123

Hi all,

I have been a user of iii now for the past few years and recently they have brought in a required £20 a month per quarter fee for "trade commission". I do not make trades regularly enough for this payment and just want to leave investments I have made to grow.

Are there any decent alternatives that only charge for trades made, not a stupid form of credit that it seems if you don't use within the quarter you loose!

Kind Regards,

Ben.

bigfreddiel

td directinvesting does it for me

grey_gym_sock

the options can vary depending on whether you hold funds, shares, or both. and whether you want cheap automatic reinvestment of dividends. and perhaps on whether you're in an ISA or unwrapped.

Stanley_St

I moved my shares from iii to X-O and have been happy enough so far.

vulcan59

bigfreddiel wrote: »

td directinvesting does it for me

I think Ben is looking for somewhere that doesn't make a charge for inactivity on the account. In which case he needs to be aware of this from the TD Direct Investing web site.

We do charge an Account Management fee of £12.50 + VAT per quarter on Trading Accounts that have not traded and have a combined cash and stock valuation of less than £7,500.

BLB53

Are there any decent alternatives that only charge for trades made, not a stupid form of credit that it seems if you don't use within the quarter you loose!

www.sippdeal.co.uk worth a look - I moved my isa from ii to sippdeal after all the problems this summer.

boltneck123

grey gym sock,

I would like to hold shares and also a stocks and shares isa, which I do have open with iii also.

My investments are long term and I only tend to log into my trading account on iii occasionally. I do intend to make regular investments in the future though. Currently I am working towards gathering capital together for more short term trading, so I would also like any new potential broker to have good day trading facilities, with reasonable charges.

My next fee is on due on the 2nd of January, so there is some time for me yet do some research on all of this. I thought I would start here, the best feedback for services is of course from those who use them.

BLB53,

Thank you. This broker looks quite good, the charges are reasonable very closely in line with iii. When I eventually start to make more trades per month, it seems I could save nearly 50% on trading costs, always nice to keep the average SP down .

I need to find a good exit point from iii though, they charge £15 per line of stock for holdings transfers, which I feel is quite expensive.

dtsazza

In my case, I moved from iii to Selftrade - primarily because they offered a regular investment scheme for £1.50 commissions, which is how I usually invest and was what attracted me to iii in the first place.

The best option for you may vary depending on what specific aspects you're looking for - as you've seen in this thread there is a fair choice of brokers with no annual fee.

grey_gym_sock

i'd also mention SVS Securities - a flat £5.75 commission per deal. however, in an ISA they only do FTSE-350 shares; outside, they do all UK-listed shares.

selftrade have a quarterly inactivity fee of £10.50, but you can avoid it by making 1 trade per quarter. any dealing, even regular investments at £1.50, across either ISA or non-ISA, will do.

donniej

For shares, SVS Securities and X-O are the cheapest I found (£5.75 and £5.95 each) though I haven't tried either.

Exit fees are pretty annoying and in most cases far too high - definitely worth taking into consideration when you choose your next broker!

JohnRo

Maybe IWeb are a fit for your requirements - £25 one off fee, no inactivity or annual charges. Dealing costs a flat £5 fee.

The disadvantage is their currency conversion charge, 1.5% from 6 April 2013.