General Investment accounts

SeanAustin · 13 February 2020 at 11:08AM

Can anyone recommend a good General Investment Account provider? Thanks.
Sean

eskbanker · 13 February 2020 at 11:16AM

What does 'good' look like to you?

Some are swayed by availability of an app, others by low costs, others by range of available investments, others by perceptions of customer service, etc, etc.

A cost-based comparison is available at https://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/

bowlhead99 · 13 February 2020 at 11:23AM

It depends what you want to hold in the account and how much.

x-o.co.uk are cheap enough but don't offer open ended funds

IWeb are cheap and offer shares and funds (though not every fund you might want) but charge a fee for every purchase without giving you a discount on it for regular monthly purchases.

Interactive Investor are more expensive but have access to a range of foreign markets and let you hold foreign currency cash.

Charles Stanley Direct have a 'percentage of assets' based fee for funds ,and fixed fees for shares and ITs/ETFs

AJ Bell Youinvest have a lower percentage-based fee but small transaction based fees too

All have been recommended on here from time to time. Even HL.co.uk has some merits as their customer service is decent and if you're only investing small amounts their high percentage-based fee on funds won't be a huge amount of actual pounds.

I use youinvest for my GIA but only because I'm also using them for SIPP and ISA; they have been fine and you can add other accounts of other family members on the same login with view only or trading permissions.

Sorcerer2018 · 13 February 2020 at 11:37AM

I do like my Hargreaves Lansdown account, because I trade just investment trusts, and I don't have to pay any fees only transaction costs. So this works out well for me. But I wouldn't like to holds OEICs, because that would get expensive.