Hargreaves Lansdown "playing hardball"

Froggitt

Not waiting for HL to pull rabbit out of hat any longer. Issued instructions to move all my HL to The Share Centre yesterday, as I cannot believe HL will charge less than £4pm for my portfolio of shares and funds, which TSC will convert to clean funds ASAP.

jimjames

Rollinghome wrote: »

EDIT: Just noticed that a couple of words have been deleted from my original post, presumably at someone's request and possibly Hargreaves Lansdown themselves. Following the alleged threats of legal action against Justin Modray when he discussed their uncompetitive charges on www.candimoney.com this seems to be a very sensitive issue for them.

That's shocking. I was trying to work out what was deleted from your post but it isn't obvious and I don't recall reading anything that could be considered defamatory.

I use HL for part of my portfolio having moved all the trackers away last year and think they offer a very good service but if they are so twitchy that they feel the need to get forum posts deleted then it really shows them in very poor light. It would be far more open if they used a HL forum account to post a response rather than lobbying MSE behind the scenes to delete text they object to. I wonder if all the complaints about HL on the RM share sale have been removed too.

planteria wrote: »

who do you guys consider to be the main alternatives, at this stage?

It depends what you hold in your portfolio. I only have funds so Cavendish Online is the cheapest option I've found at the moment. I'm on their Cofunds platform which will be slightly more expensive than their FundsNetwork side for new investments but retains the existing terms for all money invested as of 31/12/13 so I still get the rebates and platform fee paid out of the 0.25% fund charge so no additional cost for me.

Froggitt

Rollinghome wrote: »

I suspect HL are very dependent on client inertia and price-checking fatigue.


....snip......

EDIT: Just noticed that a couple of words have been deleted from my original post, presumably at someone's request and possibly Hargreaves Lansdown themselves. Following the alleged threats of legal action against Justin Modray when he discussed their uncompetitive charges on www.candimoney.com this seems to be a very sensitive issue for them.

a) Indeed. I've just got over my inertia due to HL's inertia. I even called them yesterday to tell them I was leaving and is there anything they wanted to do about it e.g what are the new charges


b) I wonder what whoever asked for the text to be removed did not want in the public domain?

jimjames

Froggitt wrote: »

b) I wonder what whoever asked for the text to be removed did not want in the public domain?

On the plus side at least it shows that HL are reading this thread and are getting some feel for what customers want.

My suggestions to Hargreaves Lansdown for you to be more competitive

1) Remove the tracker platform charge or at least cap it in the same way the 0.5% share charge is done.
2) 0.25% platform fee covered by the platform element of the annual charge
3) Full rebate of the 0.5% commission fee

So how about it HL - can you match the competion so that we don't need to move our investments elsewhere?

WatsonNimrod

Very interesting thread this, I'm sensing the scant love for H&L on these forums have reached record lows.

Its a tough one for me, I've been with them since before the days of the Internet when they were seen as a breath of fresh air in a very staid and dull marketplace. I still credit them with making me feel my investments were more interesting than those being offered at the time in horrible 2nd floor dingy brokers offices 20 years ago. That got me into investing in such a way that I've never looked back and can afford to retire way before my Final Salary pension kicks in.

Slightly backwardly I moved my S&S ISA (100% shares no funds etc) to Sippdeal last year as I wasn't getting a good deal on my trades and the charges were exorbitant, but it took me 2 years to convince myself to do it, happy enough with it.

Now my SIPP is my main worry as I have a decent 6 figure sum in there trundling away 90% in Funds (mostly not in the 'Wealth 150) that I felt I was getting a reasonably good deal on fees.

Like a lot of their SIPP customers I guess I should be looking harder at the fee structure of the competitors, but because I'm not trading in the account much I just let it meander on till they announce the fee changes.

I've looked around at other SIPP providers, but I just cant seem to get the funds I want at the prices I get from H&L, or am I just suffering from client Inertia (!!) too when it comes to my SIPP???

jamesd

In addition to trail commission, Hargreaves Lansdown may receive:

1. Foreign exchange fees/spreads for deals in non-UK currencies.
2. Joint marketing funding (or not, I don't recall whether HL has taken a position on accepting this and if it happens that the FCA doesn't permit it I'm sure that they would not accept it).
3. Assorted other fund management related revenue for its own brand funds. I assume that if there is any of this revenue it's all fully disclosed in the appropriate fund and business annual reports.

Since I am generally favourably inclined towards Hargreaves Lansdown I checked with their press office at about 1:20PM today and was told that mentioning those 1 and 2 things was not objectionable to them. I hadn't considered mentioning point 3 at the time but it's pretty self-evident and not in any way improper.

The original post referred to miscellaneous revenue sources in addition to platform fee and trail commission using wording that could have been read as meaning illicit payments. It seems reasonable for MSE to have removed that original wording.

gadgetmind

WatsonNimrod wrote: »

Now my SIPP is my main worry as I have a decent 6 figure sum in there trundling away 90% in Funds (mostly not in the 'Wealth 150) that I felt I was getting a reasonably good deal on fees.

I think we're going to have problems with my wife's small (sub £50k) SIPP as it's in a Vanguard LS tracker and the new fees will probably eat it alive compared to the current £24kpa platform fee.

We also have £100k in some old S&S ISAs, but these are easy to move as they are mostly in funds as they date to before my passive enlightenment. Less easy is a similar sum in blue chip equities and ITs that my wife holds unwrapped.

My SIPP is with BestInvest as HL slammed everyone with that £2 pcm per tracker fee *just* before I started it. The forms were all filled in, so a lucky escape!

I suspect we'll be moving the funds and the SIPP from HL but I'm going to wait until everyone has shown their hands.

jimjames

jamesd wrote: »

Since I am generally favourably inclined towards Hargreaves Lansdown

I am too and still suggest them for new investors as a good place to learn and an easy place to start an ISA. Others may be cheaper but the HL website is still the best in my view.

jamesd wrote: »

The original post referred to miscellaneous revenue sources in addition to platform fee and trail commission using wording that could have been read as meaning illicit payments. It seems reasonable for MSE to have removed that original wording.

Without seeing the original wording it is hard to comment but if it said undisclosed revenue from fund managers that would seem to be an accurate description. HL don't say how much they get to promote certain funds which suddenly appear on the W150 with no track record and not meeting their own supposed criteria so it is not disclosed.

Someone apparently questioned Mr Hargreaves about their service a couple of years ago and was asked to take their business elsewhere. Check post #35 on this

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2776460

They haven't (yet) asked for that to be removed so can we assume it is factually correct.

jamesd

The post used wording that might be taken to mean things that would breach the Bribery Act. Removing the portion that was removed was entirely appropriate, as was a complaint about that wording.

JohnRo

No need to even mention probable unpublicised sweeteners without references anyway, it leans right over into defamatory and doesn't add anything to the point being made.