Investment account charges

oz0707

Unsure whether bank account or investment forum was appropriate.

HSBC have just sent me a letter saying next year there is going to be a quarterly charge for the HSBC invest direct account, yet cost of trade is going down by about £2 per trade.

Does anyone know of a provider with no yearly/quarterly/monthly account management fee? Any reccomendations?

wrapped in ISA preferably

Thanks

Pincher

I specifically set up the HSBC Premier account because the Invest Direct has no quarterly fees, and custody/dividend distribution is free once a share is bought. Obviously, I intended to just leave the shares and not touched them for years.

They might just quietly refund a small number of vocal customers, and charge the majority who don't complain. So I would at least register my displeasure.

dunstonh

Does anyone know of a provider with no yearly/quarterly/monthly account management fee? Any reccomendations?

What assets do you hold and trade in? (funds or direct holdings)

The changes are due to regulatory requirements removing funding by commission and backhanders.

grey_gym_sock

assuming you have only direct holdings (i.e. shares) in this account, then there are a few providers with no yearly/quarterly/monthly charge for a S&S ISA:

- ajbell youinvest

- X-O

- SVS

- saga share direct (only available to over 50s)

- TD direct (no charge if the ISA is worth at least £5,100, or has a regular investment facility)

- iweb (but this is only attractive if you already have at least 1 account with them, because there is now a charge of £200 to open your 1st account)

and for a taxable (non-ISA) account containing only shares, you can avoid charges with any of the above providers (though note that TD direct has slightly different conditions to avoid charges on its taxable account), or with the following:

- halifax share dealing

- hargreaves lansdown

- shareprice

- equiniti shareview

some useful lists of providers:
http://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/
https://the-international-investor.com/comparison-tables/cheapest-uk-online-stockbrokers
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3153942

oz0707

All direct holdings.

Thanks for the list. I did drop onto halifax yesterday by chance but i'm going to have a proper look this afternoon. I'm not a particularly frequent trader. Less than 10 trades per year i'd say.

I have a holding in a non isa account, however I may just cut my losses here rather than open another non-isa direct holdings account.

oz0707

Am i right in my understanding that with the halifax, providing i'm just buying and selling, withdrawing any funds by BACS there is no annual/montly change for their stocks and shares isa

[URL="http://www.halifax.co.uk/sharedealing/charges/stocks-and-shares-isa-charges/[/URL]

Also no charge to transfer in existing holding

Edit - 12.50 per annum charge

J._Jones

I'm afraid you really need to read the small print in the enclosed documentation that came with the letter. For some reason the letter highlighted the introduction of the quarterly charge but failed to indicate the most salient information which was actually that InvestDirect is being closed to any new customers with effect from 1 January 2016.

Hardened cynics shouldn't need telling that when any product is no longer going to be recruiting customers it is clearly living on borrowed time and the company concerned must have as-yet-unannounced plans to shut it down entirely. (As if you couldn't have guessed this from the fact that InvestDirect has received no investment from HSBC in recent years to upgrade it and to keep it up to scratch: it's manifestly a tired and antiquated platform, years out of date, which is heading for the scrapheap.)

HSBC also has some revealing form in this area. A quick Google confirms that in recent years they've withdrawn completely from retail stockbroking in a number of countries including Greece and India, to considerable local annoyance, of course, because their customers had got accustomed to buying and holding their shares through their bank. But HSBC evidently decided that retail stockbroking was what they quaintly call a "low-margin business" (ie. they don't make enough profit out of creating the opportunity for customers to manage their own shareholdings) and so wanted to stop providing this facility.

You can therefore safely conclude that after shutting to new business early next year InvestDirect in the UK will fairly soon also be closed down for existing customers (with any luck from the bank's point of view there will be far fewer anyway following the unwelcome imposition of quarterly charges).

In short, HSBC customers in Britain should probably start looking around right now for a new retail stockbroker (and, if they use their shareholdings to qualify for HSBC Premier, which will cease to be possible once InvestDirect closes, for a new bank too).

jimjames

oz0707 wrote: »

Does anyone know of a provider with no yearly/quarterly/monthly account management fee? Any reccomendations?

wrapped in ISA preferably

Thanks

iWeb have only a one off fee. Unfortunately it's now £200 but depending on the level of your funds that may still be a viable option.

oz0707

I may have missed that in the small print, but i'm planning on leaving anyway, it's irrelevant! I can't stomach the quarterly fee when theres better deals to be had!

j118

Thinking of transferring out to AJBell, just wanted to see if anyone knows whether HSBC allows in specie transfer as I only hold individual UK shares in my S&S ISA. Have looked at the literature but can't see anything in print. Otherwise, I will give them a ring. Thanks.

george4064

If you only have direct holdings, ETFs and ITs, Hargreaves Lansdown's charges are 0.45% capped at £45 p.a. for an ISA.