Free trading offer from HL. £100 for 7 weeks

Beddie

Alexland said:

Other established platforms such as Fidelity and AJ Bell have been reducing dealing costs (which were already cheaper than HL) to compete with new entrants. There's got to be a limit to how long HL can get people to continue paying £11.95 coupled with the high 0.45% on tax advantaged accounts. I guess this offer buys them time but once it's over the pressure will be on them again.

And yet:

Investment firm Hargreaves Lansdown (HL) has reported a rise in revenues and new clients for the first quarter of the year. The Bristol-headquartered company said new products, such as ready made pensions and cash ISAs, had helped secure 34,000 new customers in the three months ending March 31 - up 48% year on year.

HL reported net new business of £1.6bn over the period, with revenues rising to £199.7m, an increase of 6% on the last quarter of 2023.

https://www.business-live.co.uk/professional-services/banking-finance/new-products-help-hargreaves-lansdown-29083071

masonic

Beddie said:

Alexland said:

Other established platforms such as Fidelity and AJ Bell have been reducing dealing costs (which were already cheaper than HL) to compete with new entrants. There's got to be a limit to how long HL can get people to continue paying £11.95 coupled with the high 0.45% on tax advantaged accounts. I guess this offer buys them time but once it's over the pressure will be on them again.

And yet:

Investment firm Hargreaves Lansdown (HL) has reported a rise in revenues and new clients for the first quarter of the year. The Bristol-headquartered company said new products, such as ready made pensions and cash ISAs, had helped secure 34,000 new customers in the three months ending March 31 - up 48% year on year.

HL reported net new business of £1.6bn over the period, with revenues rising to £199.7m, an increase of 6% on the last quarter of 2023.

https://www.business-live.co.uk/professional-services/banking-finance/new-products-help-hargreaves-lansdown-29083071

I'm sure it had nothing to do with the cashback offer they had running at the same time.

Rich1976

Unless HL are forced to reduce their platform fees, there currently seems little incentive for them to do so. Regardless of what incentives they have , they are continuing to grow their customer base and have nearly 2 million customers .

the other platforms are tiny by comparison with about half a million customers so there is still a lot of catching up to do . 

At least HL’s charging structure is straight forward to understand unlike some of the others where you have to pay a platform fee and then a fee each time you pay money in ( which works out very expensive depending on how the amount invested ), or there are fees to switch funds.

What HL does, it does very well and efficiently.

Alexland

Beddie said:

Investment firm Hargreaves Lansdown (HL) has reported a rise in revenues and new clients for the first quarter of the year. The Bristol-headquartered company said new products, such as ready made pensions and cash ISAs, had helped secure 34,000 new customers in the three months ending March 31 - up 48% year on year.

HL reported net new business of £1.6bn over the period, with revenues rising to £199.7m, an increase of 6% on the last quarter of 2023.

If that's just new customers there could still be a net reduction in overall customers as they leave or die. Active Savings could be distorting a decline in the customers on the more lucrative S&S products. Retained customer portfolios have probably grown in value as a result of market movements which will grow revenues.

wmb194

Rich1976 said:

...the other platforms are tiny by comparison with about half a million customers so there is still a lot of catching up to do . 

Which platforms are you referring to? T212 says it has 2m+ customers and Freetrade 1.4m+. Where they differ with HL is that the average value of assets per customer are far lower, T212 appears to be c.£1,400 per customer and last I checked Freetrade was c.£1,000.

https://www.trading212.com/about-us

https://freetrade.io/about

kempiejon

Alexland said:

Other established platforms such as Fidelity and AJ Bell have been reducing dealing costs (which were already cheaper than HL) to compete with new entrants. There's got to be a limit to how long HL can get people to continue paying £11.95 coupled with the high 0.45% on tax advantaged accounts. I guess this offer buys them time but once it's over the pressure will be on them again.

I have my SIPP with HL, I Pay £1.50 for monthly regular buys and custody fee is capped at £200 annually. That';s hardly extortion, I like the website and every time I've contacted customer services I have received prompt and relevant information. iWeb are only £5 deals I think, Trading 212 is free, Vanguard is cheaper than HL especially for smallish amounts but only offers their own products. Interactive Investor are doing some cash back but have a monthly fee.

ColdIron

kempiejon said:

Alexland said:

Other established platforms such as Fidelity and AJ Bell have been reducing dealing costs (which were already cheaper than HL) to compete with new entrants. There's got to be a limit to how long HL can get people to continue paying £11.95 coupled with the high 0.45% on tax advantaged accounts. I guess this offer buys them time but once it's over the pressure will be on them again.

I have my SIPP with HL, I Pay £1.50 for monthly regular buys

Not any more you don't. It's been £0 for a year now

Alexland

kempiejon said:

I have my SIPP with HL, I Pay £1.50 for monthly regular buys and custody fee is capped at £200 annually. That';s hardly extortion, I like the website and every time I've contacted customer services I have received prompt and relevant information. iWeb are only £5 deals I think, Trading 212 is free, Vanguard is cheaper than HL especially for smallish amounts but only offers their own products. Interactive Investor are doing some cash back but have a monthly fee.

I didn't say it was extortion just that HL will be coming under pricing pressure on the £11.95 trades and 0.45% fee on tax advantaged adult accounts as the rest of the market has got substantially cheaper.
I spend less than that £200 pa on my capped Fidelity and AJ Bell accounts even with modest dealing costs maybe £100 and £50 pa respectively. When I had an account with HL my experience was the customer service wasn't any better than the other established platforms and with Fidelity once you get onto the wealth tier it's really good.
I'm currently taking advantage of the II cashback on an old ISA and the T212 free share and cashback on this year's ISA but don't intend to stay with either of them beyond the 12 months.

Rich1976

wmb194 said:

Rich1976 said:

...the other platforms are tiny by comparison with about half a million customers so there is still a lot of catching up to do . 

Which platforms are you referring to? T212 says it has 2m+ customers and Freetrade 1.4m+. Where they differ with HL is that the average value of assets per customer are far lower, T212 appears to be c.£1,400 per customer and last I checked Freetrade was c.£1,000.

https://www.trading212.com/about-us

https://freetrade.io/about

I was referring to the likes of Vanguard, AJ Bell and II

Albermarle

masonic said:

Beddie said:

Alexland said:

Other established platforms such as Fidelity and AJ Bell have been reducing dealing costs (which were already cheaper than HL) to compete with new entrants. There's got to be a limit to how long HL can get people to continue paying £11.95 coupled with the high 0.45% on tax advantaged accounts. I guess this offer buys them time but once it's over the pressure will be on them again.

And yet:

Investment firm Hargreaves Lansdown (HL) has reported a rise in revenues and new clients for the first quarter of the year. The Bristol-headquartered company said new products, such as ready made pensions and cash ISAs, had helped secure 34,000 new customers in the three months ending March 31 - up 48% year on year.

HL reported net new business of £1.6bn over the period, with revenues rising to £199.7m, an increase of 6% on the last quarter of 2023.

https://www.business-live.co.uk/professional-services/banking-finance/new-products-help-hargreaves-lansdown-29083071

I'm sure it had nothing to do with the very generous cashback offer they had running at the same time.

Then as you know you can run an ISA with HL, and only pay £45 pa platform fee. 

I will also say I recently requested a small pot SIPP withdrawal ( pot was £9,900).
Secure message sent on Thursday evening. Response back Friday morning. Sent off completed form on Friday ( Freepost) . They acknowledged receipt of form early Tuesday morning, saying withdrawal times were delayed up to 10 days due to change in pension legislation. However payment arrived Friday. Letter with P45 on Tuesday.
Job done !
Could not fault them really.