S&S Isa - Best platform with low fees

pedro789

Hi
Just wanted anyone's experience on platforms with low fees for S&S Isa.

I'm planning to invest £500 p/m in HSBC FTSE All World Index C Accumulation and want something with low fees.

I looked at HL, Vanguard, Fidelity, AJ Bell and they all seemed pretty similar. Any thoughts/experience with any of these (or other) platforms?

Many thanks.

eskbanker

You can't buy a non-Vanguard fund on the Vanguard Investor platform, so that would be ruled out if you want to hold an HSBC one.

You can compare costs at sites like:

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

but I don't think there's much in the way of objective comparisons of service quality, but they're all mentioned fairly regularly on here.

dunstonh

Best platform with low fees

What would be your required functionality for it to be considered best?

I looked at HL, Vanguard, Fidelity, AJ Bell and they all seemed pretty similar. Any thoughts/experience with any of these (or other) platforms?

One of those is a restricted platform that doesnt even sell the whole of its own fund range and the other two are whole of market.    Whole of market platforms will be similar apart from their charges, functionality, software and service.

Albermarle

HL, Fidelity and AJ Bell are all well known and are mentioned very regularly on the forum, mainly in positive terms.
So unlikely you would have any problems with either of them.
The cost structure is less important when you first start. When the fund gets bigger, you can always look around again, and it is easy to transfer from one provider to another.

wmb194

Have a look at iWeb, a brand of Halifax Share Dealing. No account fees and £5 per trade though this will be a bit expensive if only 500pm. HSBC isn't terrible, no dealing fee for funds and then 0.25% annual account fee. You could build a holding here and then transfer it across to iWeb (free).

Other cheap options like Freetrade, Trading212 and CMC Invest don't offer OEICs, only ETFs, Investment Trusts and ordinary company shares. 

Personally I cannot stand HL and AJ Bell - awful websites/apps, often slow to credit dividends and interest plus relatively high fees - but they're established and there's not much to go wrong with them.

https://www.iweb-sharedealing.co.uk/

https://www.hsbc.co.uk/investments/products/global-investment-centre/

orange-juice

Does it have to be an OEIC? You can buy an etf tracking the same index (FTSE All-World) on super cheap platforms like Invest Engine or T212.

Alexland

This fund is on Dodl (part or AJ Bell) at 0.15% platform fee min £1pm. After a few years when the account is large enough consider transferring your investment to a fixed price account like iWeb who have no ongoing charge.

If you were really tight you could then be a ninja and open a new account with Dodl for your future contributions while keeping the old ones on iWeb.

If you go with a free platform like T212 or InvestEngine you would need to pick a different investment.

LHW99

If you have a SIPP with II, an ISA doesn't incur additional platform costs.

Notepad_Phil

LHW99 said:

If you have a SIPP with II, an ISA doesn't incur additional platform costs.

Are you sure about that? https://www.ii.co.uk/our-charges would suggest otherwise. E.g. if you're on the Pension Essentials plan then it looks like you'd need to pay an extra £4 per month to add an ISA on, and if you're on the Pension Builder plan at £12.99 per month then it looks like you'd have pay even more than an extra £4 to get a plan that includes an ISA and the SIPP.

Alexland

LHW99 said:

If you have a SIPP with II, an ISA doesn't incur additional platform costs.

That changed when II started offering SIPPs without requiring the customer to pay the GIA/ISA charge. They also introduced some lower price points for smaller accounts but with less benefits. Even so II is still only really suitable for someone with material investments already.

For a new account starting at £0 with £500pm contributions then a low % variable charge with no trade fees is better for the first few years.

hoc

Trading 212 or iweb