Halifax Share Dealing Service

danensis

I've been buying a small amount of shares each month since the year dot, but now Halifax have emailed to say they're going to start charging me £30 a year for the privilege on top of their commission.
This got me looking again at their Ts and Cs, and it appears my only two choices are to ask them to sell the shares and send me the money, or transfer them to another provider.
Does this mean the shares don't actually exist in the real world, but are just electronic funny money? Most of my other shares are in the form of bits of paper I can hold in my hand.
If I have to transfer to another provider, is there one that doesn't charge annual fees?

Alexland

danensis said:

I've been buying a small amount of shares each month since the year dot, but now Halifax have emailed to say they're going to start charging me £30 a year for the privilege on top of their commission.

Worse HSD are going to charge £36 pa.

Does this mean the shares don't actually exist in the real world, but are just electronic funny money? Most of my other shares are in the form of bits of paper I can hold in my hand. 

They are held in a nominee account so are grouped up with other customers and Halifax keeps track of which quantity of units belong to which customers. Perfectly normal arrangement.

danensis said:

If I have to transfer to another provider, is there one that doesn't charge annual fees?

Assuming this is an unwrapped (non ISA, SIPP etc) account then Hargreaves Lansdown's Fund & Share Account has no ongoing charge for holding exchange traded shares and their monthly direct debit investing rate for selected shares is only £1.50 per month but check they offer regular investing on your share(s). Dividend reinvestment is 1% (min £1 max £10).

ivormonee

danensis said:

I've been buying a small amount of shares each month since the year dot, but now Halifax have emailed to say they're going to start charging me £30 a year for the privilege on top of their commission.

If you're buying shares every month then you would be paying £12.95 per deal. That's £155.40 on commission per year. Under the new arrangement you would be paying £9.95 per deal which comes to £119.40 for the year. Add on the £36 charge and the total annual cost is £155.40 - ie. exactly the same. So you would be no worse off, or better off, under the new pricing. So I am not sure what the issue is.

Alternatively, iWeb will cost £5 per deal, meaning £60 for the year plus a one off opening charge of £100, totalling £160 for the first year. So just £4.60 more. But year two onwards would cost just £60, a big saving compared to Halifax! And, iWeb is part of Halifax anyway, so the platform is essentially the same and run by the same people.

Alexland

ivormonee said:

If you're buying shares every month then you would be paying £12.95 per deal. 

It's £12.50 but I assume they were probably paying the £2 regular buying rate.

ivormonee

Ok, quick re-calc: Old prices are £150 + £0 = £150 and new prices are £114 + £36  = £150; so either way no difference, based on one standard trade monthly. Yes, would be different for the regular monthly investment rate.

EthicsGradient

danensis said:

This got me looking again at their Ts and Cs, and it appears my only two choices are to ask them to sell the shares and send me the money, or transfer them to another provider.
Does this mean the shares don't actually exist in the real world, but are just electronic funny money? Most of my other shares are in the form of bits of paper I can hold in my hand.

You do have the option of getting a paper certificate from them for the shares you've accumulated in the account, but it'll cost you £25 per stock (see https://www.halifax.co.uk/assets/pdf/filestore/costandcharges.pdf "Withdrawal of stock in certificate form"). If you intend to continue investing regularly, there wouldn't be any point in this - it'd be better to transfer them to your new provider.

Baoser

I'm in a similar position. I don't trade that often. It's because when I do, whatever I buy seems to stall and then drops.

However over the years I've managed to build up a (loss) portfolio. I'm not keen to pay the £36 annual fee. So I've been looking around and I'm thinking of Hargreaves Lansdown. There's no annual charge and trades are 55p cheaper at £11.95, when compared to HSDL. My only reservation is the HL website looks very busy and a lot more confusing than the Halifax site. And also my current account is with the Halifax so I can easily move funds between the accounts.

newatc

Baoser said:

I'm in a similar position. I don't trade that often. It's because when I do, whatever I buy seems to stall and then drops.

However over the years I've managed to build up a (loss) portfolio. I'm not keen to pay the £36 annual fee. So I've been looking around and I'm thinking of Hargreaves Lansdown. There's no annual charge and trades are 55p cheaper at £11.95, when compared to HSDL. My only reservation is the HL website looks very busy and a lot more confusing than the Halifax site. And also my current account is with the Halifax so I can easily move funds between the accounts.

You comparison between the HL and HSDL site surprises me, I use both and find HL much more friendly.

Alexland

Baoser said:

I'm in a similar position. I don't trade that often. It's because when I do, whatever I buy seems to stall and then drops.

However over the years I've managed to build up a (loss) portfolio. I'm not keen to pay the £36 annual fee. So I've been looking around and I'm thinking of Hargreaves Lansdown. There's no annual charge and trades are 55p cheaper at £11.95, when compared to HSDL. My only reservation is the HL website looks very busy and a lot more confusing than the Halifax site. And also my current account is with the Halifax so I can easily move funds between the accounts.

I suggested HL above because of the £1.50 regular share dealing rate (as that's what the OP is doing) but if you are only doing adhoc trades you may find Jarvis X-O better with no ongoing charge and £5.95 per trade (but they don't offer funds). The Jarvis X-O portal is more basic than either HL and HSD.

https://www.x-o.co.uk/nominee-account.html

In terms of your investments doing badly have you considered an index tracker ETF?