AJ Bell YouInvest - refugee destinations

Eric_the_half_a_bee

I thought it might be helpful to gather thoughts in one place on where refugees from AJ Bell's charging increases are heading?

[Please direct complaints about AJ Bell's behaviour to the other thread]

ColdIron

I think the alternatives will depend very much on the type of product (ISA/Dealing/SIPP) and the sums involved

I was within weeks of opening and transferring a £300K pension to a SIPP for drawdown as the £200 cap looked very appealing. I am now looking at iWeb with their fixed fee but am curious to hear the plans of others

coyrls

ISA to Halifax Share Dealing
SIPP to Alliance Trust Savings

Separate providers should mean less disruption when the next pricing shock happens.

EdSwippet

ColdIron wrote: »

... I am now looking at iWeb with their fixed fee but am curious to hear the plans of others

Possibly worth noting that iWeb's SIPP is administered by... tada!... AJ Bell.

That doesn't mean you get the heinous fund charges that Youinvest have now decided they will try to get away with, but it does mean that some of your SIPP fees at iWeb will be shared with AJ Bell, so if you're keen to deny AJ Bell anything further from your wallet this won't quite cut it. On the plus side, a SIPP transfer from Youinvest to iWeb should be as quick and free from foul-ups as is possible since AJ Bell will be at both ends of the transfer.

I moved from Youinvest to Interactive Investor on the last huge Youinvest fee increase -- six-fold in my case -- a couple of years ago. Despite the many brickbats thrown at Interactive Investor by some, not least a long-running thread in this forum, I have been perfectly happy with the service. Admittedly I'm a long-term-buy-and-hold investor not actually contributing to this SIPP, so it goes years with no activity whatsoever, and being a SIPP has no 'tax certificate' or other issues. But Interactive Investor have always acted fairly, and in many cases better than Youinvest (for example, quickly and proactively converting funds to RDR-clean, something that Youinvest dragged their heels on for a long time).

I also hold a SIPP with Alliance Trust. Similar non-trading and passive-to-the-point-of-comatose activity there also. I regularly have insufficient cash in the account to pay their fees. After a year or two they simply write me a very nice letter suggesting that it would be good if I can clear the balance. I send them a cheque (not required to be a SIPP contribution) and it's paid. Compare to Youinvest who will unilaterally sell some of your holdings to pay the management charges, and then charge you a further fee for doing so.

So, take this as a suggestion that based on personal experience, Interactive Investor or Alliance Trust are good flat-fee homes for sizeable fund portfolios where costs at Youinvest would be many times the flat-fee ones. Both have also stated a commitment in their marketing blurb to flat fees, so it seems unlikely that they would suddenly spring a huge fee increase in the same manner as Youinvest has done (twice). In the case of Interactive Investor they will also allow a free transfer out within 12 months if you are not happy with the service. Compare with Youinvest here also.

grey_gym_sock

i don't hold any funds (in the sense: OEICs or unit trusts) with youinvest, so there's no big price rise for me. i have a SIPP and a taxable account with youinvest. custody charges on the SIPP will be unchanged; on the taxable account, they will rise from £0 to £30 a year. i will look to move the taxable account away to somewhere with no holding charges, but only as and when i'm switching holdings anyway - it's not worth paying £25 per holding to do this immediately.

some options for taxable accounts with no holding charges when you don't hold funds:

- bank of scotland share dealing
- equiniti (shareview) investment account
- fidelity (only offers a restricted range of ETFs and ITs)
- halifax share dealing
- hargreaves lansdown
- idealing (no fee if you opt for the "admin free" tariff, which has slightly higher dealing fees)
- iweb (except that there is now a fee of £200 to open your first non-SIPP account with iweb)
- saga share direct (only available to over 50s)
- sharedeal active
- shareprice.co.uk
- svs xo
- td direct (no fee if you meet any of a number of criteria, e.g. if the account is worth £15,000)
- x-o.co.uk

(some of the above are the same provider under different names.)

i'll probably be moving to providers i already have some investments with, viz. hargreaves lansdown, iweb, and td direct.

for big holdings in funds, the options for a fixed fee or low maximum fee platform are becoming more restricted. an alternative is to replace passive funds with ETFs, and active funds with investment trusts, to reduce your platform fees. (which is what i'm already doing in my youinvest SIPP.)

i only know of 4 distinct providers with what i'd call a low fixed/maximum fee for holding funds:

* halifax sharedealing (also under the names: iweb, bank of scotland share dealing, lloyds bank direct investments share dealing)

* interactive investor (also under the names: motley fool share dealing, trustnet direct)

* alliance trust savings

* the share centre

i hold funds with iweb (in an ISA and a taxable account). if iweb introduced much higher holding fees, i would seriously consider going the ETF/IT route, instead of switching to 1 of the remaining 3 providers. (OTOH, if iweb put their dealing charges up from £5 to £10 - which is what they were a few years ago - i wouldn't mind at all.)

Rollinghome

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

(OTOH, if iweb put their dealing charges up from £5 to £10 - which is what they were a few years ago - i wouldn't mind at all.)

I bet those peeps who had just paid £200 to open an account there would though - especially non fund holders if XO and SVS keep their rates to £6/8 with no account opening fees.

EdSwippet wrote: »

So, take this as a suggestion that based on personal experience, Interactive Investor or Alliance Trust are good flat-fee homes for sizeable fund portfolios where costs at Youinvest would be many times the flat-fee ones. Both have also stated a commitment in their marketing blurb to flat fees, so it seems unlikely that they would suddenly spring a huge fee increase in the same manner as Youinvest has done (twice).

On Alliance, one consideration would be that Alliance Trust Savings is still losing money and there's a constant call from AT shareholders to dispose of it. It was largely Katherine Garrett Cox's pet project and with her gone that's more likely to happen. They do have a track-record though of trying to treat clients fairly - many of whom will be AT shareholders.

talexuser

Rollinghome wrote: »

I bet those peeps who had just paid £200 to open an account there would though.

Naturally, but it would still be far better overall than paying Bell many hundreds in administration fees (even into 4 figures). Also depends whether they keep the 2% capped on dividend reinvestment. This saves me money compared to the Bell £9.95 because I like to reinvestment my dealing account IT dividends as they come in to get max compounding. I swallowed the £200 to get the ISA much cheaper, the dealing account was just bonus, and still cheaper than XO - meanwhile!

EdSwippet

EdSwippet wrote: »

Possibly worth noting that iWeb's SIPP is administered by... tada!... AJ Bell.

I should probably add that I hold both an ISA and a trading account with iWeb (aka Halifax sharedealing), just not a SIPP. As a platform iWeb are fine to work with -- helpful, responsive, and exceptionally cost-effective for my passive OEIC/funds portfolios. So a recommendation from me there also.

Rollinghome

talexuser wrote: »

Naturally, but it would still be far better overall than paying Bell many hundreds in administration fees (even into 4 figures). Also depends whether they keep the 2% capped on dividend reinvestment. This saves me money compared to the Bell £9.95 because I like to reinvestment my dealing account IT dividends as they come in to get max compounding. I swallowed the £200 to get the ISA much cheaper, the dealing account was just bonus, and still cheaper than XO - meanwhile!

Indeed, which was why I moved to Iweb before they introduced the the £200 fee and kept well clear of Youinvest due to their previous form. I see the £200 opening fee as a positive as it makes it more difficult for them to justify changing the fee structure.

It's the ultimate no-frills service and none the worse for that. I still have accounts with HL (plus a couple of brokers) and, if anything, prefer the speed and simplicity of the Iweb site with no problems to date. When I made some transfers in from Cavendish/Fidelity they were all completed within a couple of weeks.

talexuser

Rollinghome wrote: »

kept well clear of Youinvest due to their previous form.

Unfortunately I had read that whole thread in the past... and forgot about it! But saved at YouInvest compared to Fidelity, even with losing the free switching (and free transfer out). But this latest made YouInvest marginally more expensive than Fidelity. You win some and lose some, at least the £200 is chicken feed compared to the normal daily gyrations of the ISA. It is nice to have a comprehensive web interface, but as you go along and learn there are plenty of other places to get your comparison graphs, full fund info and portfolio tools etc.

Futuristic

For SIPP maybe BestInvest?