Schroders Personal Wealth - now Lloyds Wealth Stocks & Shares ISA

HRLady44

Has anyone any experience with the former Schroders Personal Wealth ISAs ?

dunstonh

They keep changing this, but Lloyds has a history of doing so dating back decades. They set something up, close them down, move it to a subsidiary, set up again, and close again.

Not just Lloyds but most of the banks. HSBC hit the news today that they are making their wealth managers redundant and replacing them with AI.

A general rule of thumb is not to rely on banks for advice. Restricted product range: typically expensive and offering very limited choices. Staff members tend to have high turnover and as already noted, banks tend to chop and change their services and that is not good for long term service.

I have checked their website fees; the platform charge is 0.2%.DFM charge: 0.33% Fund charges: 0.63% Transaction costs: 0.23 % Total 1.39%

That makes them more expensive than the average IFA who will full service and whole of market.

They also incur a high initial charge. I used their fee calculator and typed in 1 million (Only because I took on a client yesterday with that amount, and Lloyds fee was £17,500. That is staggeringly expensive. Most advice firms have a cap or tiering to stop them becoming obscene. Lloyds set theirs to £20,000. That said, my guess is that its unlikely that many people with large amounts would invest through them. Banks, historically, tend to focus on smaller value amounts where the customer is low knowledge.

jimjames

I had a sales pitch call with them a year or so ago as part of a free "customer review" from Lloyds. I already have an iWeb ISA and there wasn't anything being offered that was better - all more expensive and less flexible.

HRLady44

Thank you both. All the stocks and shares ISA ‘rewards’ appear to have been paid out in charges and the portfolio substantially underperformed its benchmark, over 6 years. I’ve made a formal complaint and I’m considering my options .

GeoffTF

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82161708#Comment_82161708

I do not expect that you will get anywhere with that. Poor investment returns are not grounds for compensation. It was a matter of chance whether they did well or badly. You gambled that they would do well and you lost.

dunstonh

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82161708#Comment_82161708

If you are extremely cautious with the portfolio, that typically means being very heavy in gilts and bonds. Those have had their worst period in over 100 years. Whereas recent years on the stockmarket have been booming.

For example, a portfolio of 100% bonds (a spread across all types) would be down around 5% over 7 years. Yet a portfolio of 100% equities would be up around 140%. The minus 5% is not underperformance by the manager. Its just that the asset class has had an extremely poor period.

You don't expect top tier performance when you invest via a bank. Typically you get more middle of the road. But I wonder if its because of your asset class rather than their management.