Halifax Investment ISA - new charges ??

Ivor33

I've always thought that the extent of charges for a Halifax Investment ISA was the 5% charge on withdrawals ... :think:

Now it's been suggested they are introducing n additional charge of 0.24% per year of the entire holding ...

Is this correct ??

Thanks

bowlhead99

If you are at the main Halifax website and you choose the "investments" option, you get presented with what they call their Investment Account or their Investment ISA.

Through that, you can choose between three internal (well, Scottish Widows) funds which have a 0.45% management fee - Managed Growth 2,4 or 6. For the 'privilege' of accessing those funds at that price through their administration system, you pay a 0.24% annual service fee.

This has been the price all year for that service. If you go back in time on the website with a tool such as the one from Archive.org, you can see that up to the end of 2015 they used to have a tiered fee instead , £3 a month to £20 a month depending on how much you had invested (so £100k+ would have been £240).

However, this Investment ISA or Investment Account isn't the one that people generally rave about on this site for its low-fee access to funds. Instead, from the main Halifax website you would go to Share Dealing instead of Investments, and there you'd find the "Stocks and Shares ISA" or Share Dealing Account. With that one you get a flat rate annual admin charge of £12.50 instead of 0.24%, and you get a much greater range of investment choices, but you have to pay a transaction fee every time you buy or sell.

If you are thinking there should be zero service fee whatsoever, that would be the 'old days', when the find charge itself was higher (i.e. The 0.45% would have needed to be a bigger number to fund a kickback to the platform administrator instead of an explicit fee)

dunstonh

I've always thought that the extent of charges for a Halifax Investment ISA was the 5% charge on withdrawals ...

Are you sure they had a charge on withdrawals? Normally the banks had 5% on purchase. Not exit. Halifax were no exception. I have taken millions out of Halifax over the years and never once suffered a fee on their ISA.

Now it's been suggested they are introducing n additional charge of 0.24% per year of the entire holding ...

Is this a branch arranged ISA or the Halifax self investment platform? I am going to assume branch arranged but please clarify.
Is this for a new investment or top up? (Halifax pulled out of advice in 2013 and changed their service and the charges changed with it).

Halifax have always had an annual charge. Halifax have never been cheap and their investment range has always been poor. However, the way charges had to be taken changed in 2013 and had to be implemented by April 2016 (some distribution channels had to change immediately on 1st Jan 2013 whilst others could leave it until April 2016). In the past, you had one annual management charge that covered everything. Now that charge is broken down into segments. Charges overall are lower today in general than they were prior to 2013. So, it is unlikely you are paying more. It is just that you pay multiple sets of charges for each area which you add up to give you a total. That total will be broadly similar, probably a bit less, than what you used to pay when there was just the annual management charge.

green_man

Halifax have never been cheap and their investment range has always been poor

. I find their S&S ISA charges much cheaper than most other platforms I have costed up.

dunstonh

green_man wrote: »

. I find their S&S ISA charges much cheaper than most other platforms I have costed up.

That is their platform for self investment. Not their branch based investments using their in-house funds which the OP appears to be referring to.

The self directed platform you mention is very much an anomaly as it is quite well priced and that is very unusual for a bank product.

PeacefulWaters

The only 5% charge they ever had was deducted from the up front investment on advised sales in branch a few years back.

Usually followed by five years of 1.5% annual charges.

bigadaj

dunstonh wrote: »

That is their platform for self investment. Not their branch based investments using their in-house funds which the OP appears to be referring to.

The self directed platform you mention is very much an anomaly as it is quite well priced and that is very unusual for a bank product.

It is unusual for a bank product but ultimately there isn't a golden rule and every relationship and transaction needs to be monitored, what was good a decade ago is probably terrible now.

These exceptions that prove the rule on bank products are rare but not unique, HSBC have had some good cheap tracker funds for some time, and conversely some of the better providers have dog funds and poor offerings as well.