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Interactive Investor bid to purchase EQi



Yet another acquisition for II on the horizon. Potentially not the best news for those who hold Lifetime ISAs at EQi, which is currently the cheapest option for a S&S LISA holding a few years max contributions.
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II were outspoken they wouldn't be offering LISA accounts and then then, with The Share Centre, they go and buy 2 platforms which offered LISAs. Admittedly it's probably only a small proportion of the assets but II will probably now take all customers on a journey to being charged £9.99 per month so I will stop suggesting EQi and stick to AJ Bell as the most stable (after the recent capping increase) good value S&S LISA provider. As II don't offer LISAs to new customers that will probably be the end of the only S&S transfer option for over 40s too. At least people won't need to ever understand EQi's strange pricing combinations that seemed to depend on the account opening sequence.Along with the purchase of Alliance Trust Savings, II are sucking choice out of the market - what next? Halifax SD are around the right size and their platform might now be beyond any reasonable business case to onward develop? Could be the end of iWeb...1
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II are sucking choice out of the market - what next?
At the same time platform costs are dropping - both ii and AJ Bell have recently removed various charges .
Presumably the only way to stay profitable is to keep getting bigger by hoovering up the smaller players ?
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Albermarle said:
At the same time platform costs are dropping - both ii and AJ Bell have recently removed various charges .
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Albermarle said:II are sucking choice out of the market - what next?
At the same time platform costs are dropping - both ii and AJ Bell have recently removed various charges .
Presumably the only way to stay profitable is to keep getting bigger by hoovering up the smaller players ?
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Alexland said:Albermarle said:
At the same time platform costs are dropping - both ii and AJ Bell have recently removed various charges .
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Also of interest in that story - they keep up the talk of an IPO for II. I had been thinking about moving my II accounts ('trading' and ISA) to a couple of other providers, which would save a few quid each year, and have the reassurance of not relying on just one platform (though I do have a SIPP elsewhere). But the persistent rumours of an IPO, which may well include an offer of shares at a good price to customers, have kept me there - it would be annoying to have been a customer for about 10 years, leave, and then find I've missed out on a good deal just a year later (a 'negative carpetbagger'?). And given II's charging structure, if you keep an account open with them, then you may as well keep a lot in it, as long as you don't go over the 'trading allowance per month' they use.
In moments of navel-gazing, I wonder if they keep the rumours of an IPO going just to make customers think it's always worth staying with them.0 -
If II do IPO it will be interesting to see how they value it as HL have now dropped to a PE of around 24 but AJ Bell have turbo charged forward to around 47 now. Jarvis looks cheaper at 18. HL are good at attracting lots of high paying newbie customers but that might change as the younger ones are more familiar with Freetrade, T212, etc and start expecting platforms to be free.
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EQi is also the only S&S LISA provider that allows transfers from over-40s, so that option may be closed too.....
i wonder why Equiniti went through the hassle of setting up EQi only to sell it a little while later.0 -
MDMD said:i wonder why Equiniti went through the hassle of setting up EQi only to sell it a little while later.EQi was just a rebrand of Selftrade which Equiniti bought about 5 years ago. II probably made them a very good offer on the basis of converting most of those accounts onto the more lucrative £9.99 fee model with systems consolidation and economies of scale. Fidelity are also looking to make similar purchases after taking over Cavendish who were already using their platform. Sadly the market is ideally placed for consolidation into a few big retail platforms.0
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Just got an email saying equiniti is flogging my account along with others to iii
So from comdirect -> squaregain -> selftrade -> equiniti -> iii this platform has been sold once for about every three share trades I've made :-)0
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