Share Dealing Platform

refluxer

frankiesowner said:

Was investigating the x-o platform which looks very interesting and a possibility. Discovered Freetrade - https://freetrade.io/ - which also seems to offer a no fee / no frills service and can handle transfer in of UK listed securities. Freetrade seems to be almost perfect but wonder if I'm missing something?

I haven't used Freetrade so can't comment on their service but if they're offering a fee-free account and commission-free trades, then how do they make their money ? Could the offer prices possibly be lower to off-set this ? Their site says that 'other charges may apply' and refer you to their 'full pricing table' but you end up going round in circles on their site when clicking the links to try and find it.

Not that this will affect your decision, but it did just occur to me that there was an additional reason why I chose X-O over much of the competition and that was because they were one of the few brokers still accepting paper certificates, of which I still had a number at home. If yours are already held electronically, then that shouldn't be an issue for you though.

In terms of longevity (and confidence), "X-O is a brand name of Jarvis Investment Management Ltd who have been established for over 30 years".

frankiesowner

jimjames said:

How about iWeb? No annual fees..

Yes this looks interesting but I notice there is a one-off £100 account opening charge?  That said thereafter that it's £5 per trade. However x-o looks like it's still a no annual fee platform with £5.95 per trade - and a small exit fee. My only worry is how robust x-o is and longevity.

wmb194

refluxer said:

frankiesowner said:

Was investigating the x-o platform which looks very interesting and a possibility. Discovered Freetrade - https://freetrade.io/ - which also seems to offer a no fee / no frills service and can handle transfer in of UK listed securities. Freetrade seems to be almost perfect but wonder if I'm missing something?

I haven't used Freetrade so can't comment on their service but if they're offering a fee-free account and commission-free trades, then how do they make their money ? Could the offer prices possibly be lower to off-set this ? Their site says that 'other charges may apply' and refer you to their 'full pricing table' but you end up going round in circles on their site when clicking the links to try and find it.

Freetrade's fine and it offers the same bid and offer prices as other brokers. It appears to be running at a loss at the moment but it hasn't been having any trouble recently raising new capital and it charges for certain things e.g., Isas, there's a (small) FX fee to buy foreign shares and £10pm to have access to a wider range of shares and ETFs including small caps. I've signed up to the £10pm 'plan' and for the price and what I'm looking for it's a bargain.

https://freetrade.io/compare-plans

refluxer

frankiesowner said:

I'm going to look at x-o which looks promising.  However I need to understand how the trade is executed. Is it online and do you get a confirmed price for the sale.  Will look into that.

Yes, many of these online nominee accounts will only allow you to deal online as that is presumably how they keep their costs down. Some companies do offer a phone option, but you will usually pay more for dealing that way - either a higher rate of commission, a higher minimum or possibly both.

I haven't yet sold via X-O so I can't comment on their specific process but with the online brokers I've dealt with in the past, the process is normally straight forward. Once the shares are in your account, you simply log on, choose the 'sell' option, select the stock you wish to sell, tell them how many you wish to sell and they'll give you an offer price that is then valid for a short amount of time (this can be as low as 15 seconds). Once that time is up, you have to generate a new quote in order to try again. You can always cancel and back out if you change your mind.

When selling via X-O, the only charge I'm aware of is their £5.95 flat fee - their charges are listed part-way down their help page here. All of this is presuming that this is a company listed on the London Stock Exchange, as mentioned above.

As I mentioned in my previous post, if you don't have paper share certificates to deal with then you will probably have more options available to you than I did, so it's definitely worth looking at the competition.

refluxer

frankiesowner said:

jimjames said:

How about iWeb? No annual fees..

Yes this looks interesting but I notice there is a one-off £100 account opening charge?  That said thereafter that it's £5 per trade. However x-o looks like it's still a no annual fee platform with £5.95 per trade - and a small exit fee. My only worry is how robust x-o is and longevity.

Relative robustness and longevity was one of the reason why I actually went for X-O, as Jarvis seems to be a fairly reputable and long-established company. There are no guarantees with any of these companies though.

John464

refluxer said:

I haven't yet sold via X-O

I have with no problems.
The money is credited immediately - you can trade immediately with it.
If you want to withdraw it to your nominated bank account you have to wait 2-3 working days till settlement day.  Then another 2-3 working days for the free of charge transfer to your nominated account.
Or you can have fast transfer to your nominated account which incurs a small fee.

adindas

With X-O there will be £5.95 fee per trade. You get charged twice when you buy it and when you sell it.

You will never know you might do trade multiple times a year. This will keep adding to your investment cost

Millyonare

Another vote for iWeb, when using larger sums of cash. Owned by Lloyds, for peace of mind (perceived or real). At £5 a trade, they are close to the cheapest (for bigger sums, like the OP has posted). Platform is very user-friendly. They sometimes do "half price" signup deals for ~£50.

Jaynishriya

frankiesowner said:

refluxer said:

If it's a Corporate Sponsored Nominee (CSN) account you currently hold with Equiniti/Shareview, the selling fees are 1% with a minimum of £20 but would there be a charge for transferring out ?

Thanks. Yes I believe it is a CSN account (getting details out of Equiniti is proving to be a challenge).  Yes one of the things previous leavers have warned me about is the future charge should I wish to transfer out - hence the need to act quickly after I retire so as not to be 'locked in'.

This website details the transfer out charges of all shares held under Equiniti's CNS account - click under the 'Terms and Conditions' of the shareholding: Corporate Sponsored Nominee (shareview.co.uk)  

refluxer

frankiesowner said:

jimjames said:

How about iWeb? No annual fees..

Yes this looks interesting but I notice there is a one-off £100 account opening charge?  That said thereafter that it's £5 per trade. However x-o looks like it's still a no annual fee platform with £5.95 per trade - and a small exit fee.

So if you've got £50k-worth of shares and want to sell them at a rate of £5k per year over 10 years, then that'll cost £150 with iWeb (including the sign-up fee), £59.50 with X-O and possibly nothing with Freetrade on their basic plan (although I'd still personally want to check exactly what they mean by 'other charges may apply').

Freetrade don't deal with paper certificates which is why they wouldn't have been on my radar, so I don't have any experience of their service. iWeb do so would have been, but the £100 sign-up fee probably put me off as I was only looking for a simple nominee account to stash some shares and would only sell very infrequently - ie. I wouldn't be making use of any of the more advanced features that iWeb possibly offers over X-O. In that respect, it sounds like your needs are similar to mine.

If iWeb does offer extra functionality that you think you might make use of in the future though, then it sounds like it could be worth a look based on the recommendations above and a more-frequent trader will obviously be saving 95p per trade over X-O's flat-fee. 

In terms of 'exit fees', if you're simply using X-O to hold shares in a Nominee account (and not an ISA), then the only exit fees I'm aware of are £15+VAT 'per stock' for transferring to another broker. I don't know if small transfer fees like this will apply to all brokers, but I think that's been the case with the ones I've used in the past.