Hargreaves Lansdown "playing hardball"

dunstonh

Lokolo wrote: »

Why is it free for £2million+!?

How on earth does that make sense.

It is not free.

The tiering is not the price you get on the whole amount if you are in that band. It is cumulative. The first £250k is 0.45%, then the next amount gets the next band and so on upwards.

Blackdog

bowlhead99 wrote: »

it is still a leap to getting the majority of HL's customer base to visit a proper, niche, comparison website, and actually entering in all their current and future holdings details and then acting on what they find...

Any suggestions of niche comparison websites we can use? Many thanks.

Lokolo

dunstonh wrote: »

It is not free.

The tiering is not the price you get on the whole amount if you are in that band. It is cumulative. The first £250k is 0.45%, the the next amount gets the next band and so on upwards.

Yes I was just about to edit my post after I read it was tiered pricing rather than fixed.

Opps, too early for me.

I can't find any info on HL website, can't even find the PDFs someone mentioned. Give me 30 minutes to wake up properly I guess!

SnowMan

peterg1965 wrote: »

So, how do I know if I am better off staying with HL with a £120k SIPP, ££13k S$S ISA and £17k fund and share account, with regular £1700 saving into the fund account investing in 3 OEICs per month -£250 each, the rest remaining in cash? I will transfer some shares into my ISA on 5 April.

Is there an easy way to compare providers and whether I am better off remaining with HL?

Assuming those amounts are all in funds (i.e. 120K in SIPP, 13K in ISA, 17K in dealing account then platform charges (before dealing costs) are

HL: £675pa (0.45%)
ATS: £366pa (fixed charge)
Trustnet: £344pa (0.25% capped to £200 + £144 for SIPP)
Youinvest: £360pa (£100 + £200 cap for SIPP, 0.2% for ISA/dealing)

You then have to factor in dealing costs including regular purchases for the ATS, Trustnet and Youinvest options, but that isn't going to close the difference.

If going with ATS for your SIPP (£186) then would be best to use someone else like Charles Stanley for your dealing and ISA accounts (£75) which could further reduce total costs to £261 (=186 for ATS + 75 Charles Stanley) + dealing costs for ATS SIPP, cf £675 with no dealing costs with HL.

Trustnet £144 SIPP charge is waived for a year (saving not allowed for above)

That doesn't factor in shares which are usually best held with a broker that doesn't charge a custody charge or ISA wrapper charge for shares (I use FD sharedealing for my ETFs).

jamesd

Lokolo wrote: »

Why is it free for £2million+!? ... How on earth does that make sense.

A person with two million there in one account will be paying:

0.45% on the first £250,000 = £1,125
0.25% on the next £750,000 = £1,875
0.1% on the next million = £1,000
nothing on amounts above that.

That's a total fee to HL of £4,000 a year just to get to two million.

Compare that to Turstnet Direct charging a flat 0.25% a year, capped at £200 across all accounts, but with a fund dealing charge of perhaps £10. The funds would have to be a lot more costly there to make up for the £3,800 higher HL charge even in one account. Two million in two, say SIPP and ISA, and the Trustnet Direct pricing is the same, bar the higher number of trades, while HL's doubles.

primalgeek

jamesd wrote: »

Cost for holding shares, ETFs and investment trusts drops from 0.5% to 0.45%, capped at £45 in the fund and share account or ISA and £200 in the SIPP. It appears that this platform continues to have discriminatory pricing in respect of the ETF and investment trusts, with them being more costly than funds at the 0.45% tier until total holding size for them in the SIPP reaches £44,444 and in ISA or fund and share account, £10,000. Above those amounts they are cheaper than the fund alternatives in this tier, since the price drops below 0.45%. This may make it useful for some to switch from fund to ETF versions of say some Vanguard funds to reduce HL charges.

They have also tweaked it slightly in that Investment Trust are treated separately than ETFs and Shares. Previously the both came under the same cap of £45 for ISA and £200 for SIPP. Now Investment Trusts have their own cap and ETFs / Shares a separate one. It also appears that Investment Trusts have a holding charge in the Fund and Share Account, when previously the didn't.

Froggitt

Drp8713 wrote: »

HL is still best for small investors. No fixed fees for anything, just percentages.

.............implying larger investors should run for the hills......

jamesd

peterg1965 wrote: »

So, how do I know if I am better off staying with HL with a £120k SIPP, ££13k S$S ISA and £17k fund and share account, with regular £1700 saving into the fund account investing in 3 OEICs per month -£250 each, the rest remaining in cash? I will transfer some shares into my ISA on 5 April.

Is there an easy way to compare providers and whether I am better off remaining with HL?

You're probably better off with two accounts. HL or another with no dealing charges for the regular investing and another with low holding costs for the bulk of it. That makes the most of the best features of each type of account.

Froggitt wrote: »

.............implying larger investors should run for the hills......

No big change there, seems to still be in the £60,000 to £100,000 range where it will tend to be best to switch the ongoing holdings elsewhere, even if the regular fund trading part remains at HL.

Lokolo

I think dealing charges are going to have a big impact on low/beginning investors. We currently really now only have 2 choices, HL and CS. CS is cheaper by 0.2%.

On £10k, thats £20 a year. Until it gets to around £25k+ I can't see people moving around much.

Imnoexpert_2

I wonder if we need a new thread for all this?

I see there is also a £10 fee for paper statements, a £25 account closure fee, and £25 fee for cash transfer to another provider if I've got this right. Small beer I suppose but maybe this is the future.

How will the 0.45% be collected? I would want the charge to be easily allocated to the fund .

I hope someone out there is now going to do a good platform cost comparison calculator.