Should I move my investments to Interactive Investor?

HarperBoy

I  have a mixed portfolio of about £700K, of which £500K is in an ISA account. My wife has a total of about £1.4M divided more or less evenly between ISA and non-ISA. We are both with Hargreaves Lansdown, and are generally content apart from the very high annual fees. Our problem has been trying to compare what we receive with what is on offer from other brokers

What we like about Hargreaves Landown

• Annual report in great detail making it very easy to complete Self Assessment tax return

• Clear and easily available audit trail for each investment

• Range of funds available

• Online tools allowing analysis of portfolio by sector, region, etc

• Monthly subscription for any holding

• Automatic reinvestment of dividends at low cost

The first two of these are essential

What we don’t use much

Research

Frequent trading (less than 4 or 5 per year apart from automatic reinvestment of dividends)

What we don’t like

High charges

How do Interactive measure up? It seems quite hard to get specific answers

Albermarle

The cost comparison will depend on what investments you hold.

For example if you have a Million Pounds with HL in OEIC funds, you will be paying about £3000 pa in platform fees. If the Million Pounds was in shares/Investment Trusts/ETF's it would be £45 pa.
If it is a mixture of investments, it would be somewhere inbetween. 

dunstonh

Annual report in great detail making it very easy to complete Self Assessment tax return

All platforms send consolidated tax vouchers.  Indeed, many platforms use the one of two software providers behind the scenes and use the same format.

Clear and easily available audit trail for each investment

Front end data is something that varies significantly across platforms.

Range of funds available

Stick to whole of market platforms and you will be fine.

Online tools allowing analysis of portfolio by sector, region, etc

HL's isn't that good from what I have heard.  Using third party independent tools may be better. (e.g. trustnet)

Monthly subscription for any holding

Not sure what you mean by that.  What are you subscribing to?

Automatic reinvestment of dividends at low cost

Most platforms charge nothing for reinvestment of dividends unless it is direct assets.

HarperBoy

Thanks, Dunston H.  To my query about audit trails you say "Front end data is something that varies significantly across platforms."  I'm not clear what you mean by that, but my query is specifically about Interactive Investor - do they make enough information readily available to establish an audit trail?
'Monthly subscription' might not be a clear term - I send HL cash monthly to drip feed into a few nominated investments

dunstonh

To my query about audit trails you say "Front end data is something that varies significantly across platforms."  I'm not clear what you mean by that,

Front end is the bit you see.    Each platform decides how much of the audit trail data you get to see.  Even if they all use the same back end (behind the scenes) software.

but my query is specifically about Interactive Investor - do they make enough information readily available to establish an audit trail?

I cannot answer that as I don't use them.  Hopefully others will be along soon to say.

'Monthly subscription' might not be a clear term - I send HL cash monthly to drip feed into a few nominated investments

I get you now.  Regular contributions may be a more common phrase.   most mainstream platforms handle regulars at no additional cost.

jimjames

Could you move your ISAs elsewhere from HL? Then no need to worry about tax details so it might give more options than II.

HarperBoy

jimjames - I don't worry about tax details for ISAs, which is rather the point of having them.

EthicsGradient

For your first two important points:

Annual report in great detail making it very easy to complete Self Assessment tax return

The Consolidated Tax Certificate lists the income (whether actually received, or implied for accumulation OEICs) for each holding, but grouped as "UK Equities", which is both normal shares and Investment Trusts, and "UK Unit Trusts and OEICs". Since self-assessment groups ITs with unit trusts/OEICs, this is not as convenient as it could be - you may have to re-add the totals yourself. "Overseas income" is grouped separately (ETFs in my case), and sub-grouped by the currency it's received in, whether GBP or other. Since II (in a non-ISA account) keep other currencies as they are until you either spend them or convert them to pounds, they don't attach any exchange rate to these, which means you have to look these up yourself (eg on HMRC or Bank of England websites), for the dates each was received, to complete your return. HL may make this easier - I don't know.

II do not try to tell you about ERI for overseas fund holdings at all - you have to do all that yourself at different sites.

Clear and easily available audit trail for each investment

Does this mean a trade history for an investment? You get that easily from their main portfolio screen (it won't, of course, include a history from your HL time - I don't think any platform is set up to transfer information like that in a move). If you want a complete history of income received for a particular investment too (or implied for accumulation OIECs), then there is no automatic way of getting that, as far as I know - you have to construct it from the CTCs (or, for actual income, from the quarterly statements).

MX5huggy

I don’t have any experience with any of these but have you looked at iWeb? £100 one off fee https://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/

I guess a lot of this money is just sitting doing it’s thing, I would look to move this to a cheaper platform but keep HL for your regular saving and anything you do transactions on. 

wmb194

MX5huggy said:

I don’t have any experience with any of these but have you looked at iWeb? £100 one off fee https://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/

I guess a lot of this money is just sitting doing it’s thing, I would look to move this to a cheaper platform but keep HL for your regular saving and anything you do transactions on. 

Reduced to £50 for July.

masonic

I would also a my recommendation for Web as an even cheaper alternative to II. I don't think you need concern yourself about transaction statements and audit trails as all providers will give you access to a list of transactions and statutory consolidated tax certificate. I think iWeb is better on the latter, although it was a while since I held anything unwrapped at II. If you are holding UK domiciled funds, then the tax situation will be quite simple and the thousands you'll save make it a no brainer.