iWeb - are they okay?

Chickereeeee

Damage wrote: »

To those of you who have used both Hargreaves Lansdown and IWeb for their stocks and shares ISA, do the two platforms operate in the same way?

The reason why I ask is that I've been looking around for cheaper options than Hargreaves Lansdown (where I have my stocks and shares ISA), and IWeb's name keeps cropping up.

I just need the opportunity to buy and sell funds reliably, and also hold cash in my stocks and shares ISA, if I wanted to sell my funds to be out of the market for a while.

Thanks very much.

Depends what you mean by 'the same way'. You can buy and sell funds and stocks/shares quickly, reliably and simply. Presentation could be better. eg search function, and the tendancy to use a fund code instead of ISIN number

The only practical differences I have found are:
1) There is not a single bead-and-isa button. You have take two steps (sell then buy)
2) Dividends are paid out to your bank account as they arrive, rather than being gathered until end of month (like HL do) if you choose to have them paid out.




C

Damage

Thanks Chickereeeee. That sounds okay. Regarding 'the same way', anything vaguely similar would probably do. My main concern was general reliability of the buy/sell process, plus the opportunity to hold cash in the stocks and shares ISA, if or when some (or all) of the funds are sold temporarily.

Plus

Both iWeb and HL have had capacity issues when the markets have been busy (iWeb) or during the Royal Mail share issue (HL), so I think they're evens on that score. Generally things are fine, but if the market is in meltdown then any broker is going to have trouble. On both you can hold cash in the account (doesn't have to be temporarily - though they pay about zero interest).

One thing that would be really handy is a series of YouTube tours of platforms - gives a much better feel for how they work. HL has some material but I can't find any for other big names.

Damage

Thanks for confirming the question about cash holding. That was my only other concern.

I looked at alternatives today on the 'comparefundplatforms.com' site, and got a shock when comparing HL with the alternatives. For my example quote, which was £75,000 over ten years with an average annual return of 7%, the top two results were IWeb and Interactive Investor with a 'cost impact' of £833 and £1166 respectively (net annual costs of 0.03% and 0.08% respectively). Hargreaves Lansdown were miles down the list with a cost impact of £6088 (0.45%)! I knew about HL's 0.45%, but didn't realize quite how much it affected the investment when applied to an example.

That explains why it is often stressed how important it is to keep costs down (another thing that I knew about, but hadn't got to the stage of applying it to an example investment scenario). 0.45% didn't look that much to me, but apparently it is!

badger09

I transferred my S&S ISA from HL to IWEB early last year when HL changed their charging structure. My small SIPP is still with HL - so I currently use both.

IWEB website is not as slick as HL's, but in terms of fund purchasing, I haven't noticed any material difference. It works for me.

I'm sure you're already aware, but IWEB currently charge £200 to open an account and there is a £5 commission fee on every trade, whereas HL don't charge to buy or sell funds. The £5 charge is fine by me as I do not trade frequently.

As a very recent illustration of their service -

3rd August I sent IWEB a request to transfer in an old S&S ISA from Scottish Widows.
7th August IWEB told me they'd requested the transfer
11th August SW told me they'd sold my fund and new ISA manager would have the cash within 8 - 10 working days
17th August transferred cash appeared in IWEB ISA account.

So, no complaints from me

Gadfium

I moved from HL to iWEB too. The service looks a bit basic, but it does what I want. I want a cheap place to hold a passively invested ISA, and I only buy about 4 times per year. I got into iWEB before the £200 account opening charge. Compared to HL, I have saved money, even on my relatively modest investment pot..

inflationbuster

I'm very happy with iWeb,
1. Although platform is basic it's robust. Limit orders are not free though
2. It trades US shares you cannot on III (they must be on CREST so avoid III for US shares)
3. £5 charge per trade
4. Dividends paid promptly unlike III
5. No quarterly charges as of yet

My stock ISA is still with III (will take some time to wind down) and l trade with iWeb.

DesG

inflationbuster wrote: »

1. Although platform is basic it's robust. Limit orders are not free though
.

They are in the ISA with iWeb, just not the unwrapped account.

pafpcg

I, too, can report problem-free S&S ISA transfers into iWeb. In my case it was two ISAs held on the Alliance platform. In both cases the holdings (investment trust shares) and small cash balances were transferred smoothly. The only niggle was Alliance's £120 exit fee!

My only fear about iWeb (because there seems to be no comparative data) is how good are their share purchase/sell quotes? - how much profit do they build into the prices they quote (which probably dwarfs the £5 commission charge)? But that applies to ALL these platforms - without making simultaneous identical purchases/sales on different platforms, how would we know?