H & L Platform for large amounts

MarcoM

Regarding Vanguard funds, can these be transferred from HL to Vanguard directly if they are over 100k?


This is not to do with fraud but to save money on HL charges if possible.
the 100k are in an ISA

MarcoM

chucknorris wrote: »

I've got just over £750k in HL, all in ETF's, apart from the £11.95 when I invest more (and very occasionally sell) the only HL fees that I pay are £200 for my SIPP and £45 for my ISA, both per annum.

Hi, did you negotiate these fees with them?

Morphoton

Whilst a platform like HL is very very safe, if you are still concerned you could perhaps split the £500k over say two platforms. Obviously this will increase costs but you can look at it as insurance and potentially it is only ~0.05-0.1% extra per year on the 2nd platform. So you have to decide personally if this cost is worth it. I deliberately use two platforms for my ~£400k SIPP and deliberately use different platforms for my S&S ISA and unwrapped investments. I suppose I have a rough limit of £300k per platform and £100k per fund which for me seems a good compromise between safety and costs.
The other thing to consider is that even if the underlying investments are secure but the platform had to wound up how long this would take ? Weeks or Months ? If you just invest in trackers and rebalance once a year it is no problem but if you are an active trader would it be ?

bowlhead99

MarcoM wrote: »

Hi, did you negotiate these fees with them?

You wouldn't need to: those are the standard fees for holding exchange traded products like shares, ETFs and investment trusts.

Effectively he is just using HL as a stockbroker to buy shares on the stock market and hold them for him as nominee - which is something that has historically (usually -by the majority of providers) been priced differently fo the service of investment fund platform administration for open-ended funds.

Mrs_Z

Just out of interest, for those of you who maybe have multiple funds or share holdings via a platform, do you keep a some kind of back up or a snap shot of your holdings? Say a platform went bust, and you could no longer access your account - would you be able to remember what holdings you had ???
This thread has got me thinking that maybe I should do a snapshot yearly or whenever new shares/funds have been purchased.

Morphoton

I keep PDF's of all trades and half yearly statements on my PC which is also backed up.

ColdIron

They issue contract notes for each trade which you should save somewhere just as you would a receipt for any sizeable purchase

dunstonh

If holding assets ringfenced away from the platform provider concerns you then a) you shouldnt invest more than £50k per fund house and b) you shouldnt use ITs or ETFs.

Rollinghome

MarcoM wrote: »

Hi, did you negotiate these fees with them?

I negotiated a fee of 0.25% on the whole of a large sum rather the standard 0.45% but that was when HL introduced their new fee structure following RDR. I've haven't heard of anyone negotiating lower fees with them since though I'm sure they'd listen if approached in the right way.

The other way to reduce their fees is to restrict yourself to shares/ITs and ETFs but limiting yourself in that way doesn't seem very satisfactory to me - seems an expensive inconvenience especially when HL are more expensive than available elsewhere to use just as stockbrokers anyway. They also have additional fees that are over the odds and charge for services that are provided free elsewhere - such as for stock transfers between spouses.

You could also use more than one platform and that might help with both of your concerns. I use both HL, at 25%, and IWeb (owned by HBOS). IWeb have no ad valorem fee but just a flat £5 fee on all purchases of shares, ETFs, or funds, and little else - apart from the whacking £200 account opening fee they now charge. (Halifax have a similar offering without the account opening fee.)

On HL I keep a few shares and funds where they offer a good discount on the OCF/TER compared to IWeb, or small holdings I expect to trade frequently. Almost everything else (I also have accounts with a couple of brokers) is on IWeb. IWeb is spartan to say the least but there are other flat-rate platforms such as Alliance and Interactive Investor.

Or you might find a use for Cavendish/Fidelity which offers funds only for 0.25%. If you didn't like them they, unlike HL, have no exit charges so you could move to HL for free and probably pick up a decent lump from one of their frequent cashback offers.

chucknorris

MarcoM wrote: »

Hi, did you negotiate these fees with them?

NO, they are standard HL's standard fees, to be honest they are so cheap that I would have felt like scrooge trying to negotiate those fees down. But I think it is only recently that the fees for holding etf's has been reduced, I'm hoping that it continues, but I have no idea why the fees suddenly dropped, does anyone know why?