Alternatives to Interactive Investor

DJ123

Hi folks

I am a complete novice when it comes to shares, but I have a small amount of RBS shares that I bought using TD Waterhouse, who I understand were bought by Interactive Investor. II are now charging me a fee of around £100 a year, which (I think) they give you "credits" for, which presumably you can use to buy more shares. I have had a recent bill for this, which came out of the blue.

Anyway, what I would like to do is to keep the shares long-term, and forget about them really. I do not want to buy any more shares, and I want to avoid the II charges. Does anyone know of another company I can move my shares to that does not charge quarterly fees? I understand that they still need to make a profit, so I'm happy to pay a commission on any shares I sell, which I thought was the standard model for these kind of companies.

Any recommendations would be really appreciated!
Thanks in advance

eskbanker

http://www.x-o.co.uk/our_charges.htm is a cheap broker with no ongoing fees, you might consider opening a S&S ISA with them and transferring the shares in, to shelter them from tax on capital gains and dividend income.

Holding shares in individual companies is generally considered to be poor investing, in that it's far better to diversify as widely as possible to manage risk, so IMHO it would be worth looking into collective investments such as funds....

soulsaver

IWebb has an account £25 opening fee for an S&S trading account including ISA.
No platform fees, no inactivity fees.
https://www.iweb-sharedealing.co.uk/charges-and-interest-rates/share-dealing-account-charges.asp

TCA

Try the Monevator website:

https://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/

Linton

If your total portfolio is very small you should go with a platform that has % based charges. Even H-L, the most expensive % based platform but possibly the best, would only charge you £45/year on a £10K portfolio.


The larger the portfolio the more sense it makes to use a fixed rate platform.

DJ123

Thanks for the help everybody - really appreciate it!

jaybeetoo

Although this is for investment trusts, the costs are the same for shares.

https://www.moneyobserver.com/revealed-best-value-platforms-investment-trusts

londoninvestor

Linton wrote: »

If your total portfolio is very small you should go with a platform that has % based charges. Even H-L, the most expensive % based platform but possibly the best, would only charge you £45/year on a £10K portfolio.

For individual shares (or ETFs, or ITs, but not funds), in an unwrapped account (i.e. not ISA and SIPP) HL will charge you a very reasonable £0/year!

EdGasketTheSecond

If you only have a small number of shares and aren't interested in buying anything else then why not just sell them and close the account; simplest solution.

eskbanker

EdGasketTheSecond wrote: »

If you only have a small number of shares and aren't interested in buying anything else then why not just sell them and close the account; simplest solution.

Well it's a solution, but not one that meets OP's requirements (regardless of whether or not you agree with the wisdom):

DJ123 wrote: »

what I would like to do is to keep the shares long-term