Investing with HSBC Global Strategy Portfolio

dllive

Hi,

Im thinking of investing in an HSBC Global Strategy Portfolio fund. I can either create an account with HSBC in order to invest directly in the fund with them, or I can invest in the HSBC Global Strategy Portfolio fund via my Hargreaves Lansdown account.

I presume it would be cheaper to invest directly with HSBC?

Thanks

eskbanker

Why presume?  When researching investing, choosing the investments themselves is typically significantly more onerous than selecting platforms, and the fees for the latter are easily seen on the relevant websites, i.e. it's much simpler to compare the costs of holding funds at HL versus HSBC than it is to decide on the HSBC funds in the first place....

Albermarle

dllive said:

Hi,

Im thinking of investing in an HSBC Global Strategy Portfolio fund. I can either create an account with HSBC in order to invest directly in the fund with them, or I can invest in the HSBC Global Strategy Portfolio fund via my Hargreaves Lansdown account.

I presume it would be cheaper to invest directly with HSBC?

Thanks

Probably will be cheaper, only because HL has one of the highest platform charges.
However I think you have to be a HSBC current account holder to invest with them. Check this though.

There are many other investment platforms where you can buy and hold the HSBC funds. For funds below £100K then you are normally better off with one that charges a % fee rather than a fixed fee. Such as HL, Fidelity, AJ Bell, BestInvest etc 
An outlier is Iweb, with just a £100 account opening fee and a £5 charge for each fund purchase. However if you were investing regularly/monthly you could be better off with the other ones mentioned who have a lower/no putchase fee. 

El_Torro

You've chosen a decent fund. Which Global Strategy fund are you planning to invest in?

Assuming you're going with the Balanced portfolio:

Looking at HL (a platform I use) the ongoing charge is 0.45% annually for the platform and 0.18% for the fund. So 0.63% total.

Looking at HSBC from what I can see the ongoing platform charge is 0.25%. It mentions the fund charge as 0.19%. It also mentions a 0.14% Transaction costs charge. HL doesn't mention this but if I understand it correctly (I might not) it should be the same for both. So 0.44% total if you ignore the Transaction costs. Even if I'm wrong HSBC is still a bit cheaper.

So HSBC is cheaper for the fund you want. The benefit of HL is that you can invest in a much wider range of funds so it has more flexibility. Up to you to decide whether you want to pay more for this flexibility. 

There are other platforms as well which offer HSBC Global Strategy, with different cost structures.

dllive

Thanks guys.

Ive got a 15+ year investing horizon, so Im thinking going for the 'Adventurous' fund. 

Ive just been looking at this page: https://www.hl.co.uk/investment-services/fund-and-share-account/charges-and-interest-rates . It says "The investments you choose may have their own charges, such as charges from a particular fund manager. These are in addition to our account charges."

So when HL says "...charges from a particular fund manager..." - do they mean the Ongoing Charges of the Product (0.19% in this case https://doc.morningstar.com/Document/5b44837e5677636583398b92c0f85166.msdoc/?key=6d3ad7cced83e966eb033a99485759465b00047aee79de5f  ?)

Sorry, just trying to get my head around this.

Id presumed (probably wrongly) that using another other platform (Fidelity etc) other than HSBC would be more expensive.(?)

Altior

You can view all of the associated costs on the Costs tab.

https://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/h/hsbc-global-strategy-adventurous-portfolio-c-accumulation/costs

dllive

Altior said:

You can view all of the associated costs on the Costs tab.

https://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/h/hsbc-global-strategy-adventurous-portfolio-c-accumulation/costs

Ah great, I see now. 'HL charges' and 'Investment charges' (in this case HSBC). Thats clearer now.

El_Torro

dllive said:

Thanks guys.

Ive got a 15+ year investing horizon, so Im thinking going for the 'Adventurous' fund. 

Ive just been looking at this page: https://www.hl.co.uk/investment-services/fund-and-share-account/charges-and-interest-rates . It says "The investments you choose may have their own charges, such as charges from a particular fund manager. These are in addition to our account charges."

So when HL says "...charges from a particular fund manager..." - do they mean the Ongoing Charges of the Product (0.19% in this case https://doc.morningstar.com/Document/5b44837e5677636583398b92c0f85166.msdoc/?key=6d3ad7cced83e966eb033a99485759465b00047aee79de5f  ?)

Sorry, just trying to get my head around this.

Id presumed (probably wrongly) that using another other platform (Fidelity etc) other than HSBC would be more expensive.(?)

When you're buying the same fund on two different platforms typically the fund charge is the same, it's just the platform charge that varies. There are exceptions to this, for example HL does offer discounts on some of the funds they offer. This is usually for funds which are more expensive than multi asset funds though.

Yes, the ongoing charges is what HL is referring to. The link you have given (which is for the Balanced portfolio by the way, not the Adventurous portfolio) was last updated in June 2021. HL is quoting 0.18% rather than 0.19%. I think there's been a discount in the last year or so, which will apply to funds held with HSBC as well as HL.

Yes, HSBC don't offer the most competitive value for their own funds. I don't know if this is because they're not allowed to legally, or simply because they don't need see the need to. A 0.25% platform charge, with no fees for selling or buying, is still pretty good though. Depending on how much you're investing you could get it cheaper elsewhere.

Futuristic

HSBC are competitive when you get to private banking levels (million(s). Otherwise most banks investing products are quite high (except Lloyds)

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

Depending on your amount someone like AJ Bell may work out cheaper. Or if you have over £50k+ then a fixed platform like II/iWeb may work out better. 

Albermarle

As above , HSBC charge of 0,25% for their platform /ISA is competitive, but I still think you have to be a HSBC current account holder.

MX5huggy

The scale of the investment is important £50 a month for 15 years would push you towards one platform compared with dropping £500k in one transaction to be held for 15 years. The first one trading fees (£5 a trade is typical) are very important the second the platform fees are very important. 

https://monevator.com/cheapest-stocks-and-shares-isa-hack/