Interactive Investor Platform

[bad company]

I currently have large portfolios in a Fund & Share and an ISA account with Hargreaves Lansdown. I buy income funds and use the dividends to enhance my living expenses so not too many trades.

I’m fed up with HL fees even having negotiated a discount so thinking of moving to Interactive. Has anyone here done this and have any views/advice?

[Tye Green]

I've got accounts in both and the reporting and technical info is better on II than HL. II also usually allow fund orders up to about 1 hour before valuation point whereas HL seem to want the order before 8am.

Regarding charges, a friend with a large amount invested with HL has negotiated a flat rate of 0.25% (+ fund fees) but if you invest only in ETFs their charges are limited to £200.

[bad company]

Tye Green said:

I've got accounts in both and the reporting and technical info is better on II than HL. II also usually allow fund orders up to about 1 hour before valuation point whereas HL seem to want the order before 8am.

Regarding charges, a friend with a large amount invested with HL has negotiated a flat rate of 0.25% (+ fund fees) but if you invest only in ETFs their charges are limited to £200.

Thanks, I also negotiated 0.25%. That’s still costing me a lot more than the fixed £11.99 monthly ‘Investor Plan’ fees from Interactive Investor.
‘

[WillB]

Long time ii account holder here, have my SIPP, ISA and GIA with them, very happy with the excellent service and low fees.

There's a referal scheme that gives you a free years subscription:- https://www.ii.co.uk/recommend-ii

Drop me a PM if anyone on here wants to sign up to that

[NowWatchThisDrive]

Obviously if it requires dramatically changing your strategy and/or realising a big capital gain then may not be feasible, but if sticking to ETFs(/ITs/stocks) then the HL platform fee is capped at £45 a year; the £200 mentioned by previous poster is for SIPPs. Obviously there are dealing fees which you won't have now with your funds, but if you're an infrequent dealer then you may not be getting the most out of that benefit anyway.

[Mogul]

I use ii as it works well enough, isn’t expensive, and when I have dealt with the support team, they have been fairly effective.

I find the reporting quite basic and my main two big bears are that

1. 1 you might hold the same fund in your SIPP, ISA, & GIA, but the system can’t show your aggregate holding in that security across the three accounts (unless that is the only security you hold in all three).

1. 2 you can play with charts showing the performance of any given security, but you cannot see a chart of your portfolio over time (or go back to see what you were worth at any given time (although they do produce a fairly boring quarterly report with the basic info.)

[chip*]

Once your (sell) trade is logged, I like the settlement calendar which shows you the day the cash will appear on your account.
Also, the standard cash payment is free, efficient and quick too. Send in your instruction before 2pm, and you get the cash in your account next business day.

Standard trading charge are cheap, but if your trade exceeds £100k on say an Oeic fund, there is an additional £40 trading charge per transaction. I had to pay this from a recent tweak to my portfolio, so something to consider depending on trading activity.

I used to be with HL paying the discounted 0.25% platform fee (loved their app and website), but in the end, the platform fee saving was too huge to ignore. Imo, the platform fee savings kicks in with a pot >100k and if you have low trading activity, it make financial sense to go to either iWeb or ii.

[g4ry13]

I moved away from ii to HL.

The reason being that ii introduced a charge for having an account. I was not keeping an active eye on my investments and noticed later that in order to recuperate their cost they had helped themselves to selling shares for me rather than actually contacting me.

[WillB]

g4ry13 said:

I moved away from ii to HL.

The reason being that ii introduced a charge for having an account. I was not keeping an active eye on my investments and noticed later that in order to recuperate their cost they had helped themselves to selling shares for me rather than actually contacting me.

The monthly charge of £11.99 / £19.99 is either taken from any cash balance, or debit card held on the system.

[ukwill]

I moved a large sum out of HL into II around 5yrs ago. Haven't looked back. Would happily recommend them.

The HL platform is probably more feature rich, but fundamentally the savings made from moving have *far* outweighed any usp that HL might have.

[g4ry13]

WillB said:

g4ry13 said:

I moved away from ii to HL.

The reason being that ii introduced a charge for having an account. I was not keeping an active eye on my investments and noticed later that in order to recuperate their cost they had helped themselves to selling shares for me rather than actually contacting me.

The monthly charge of £11.99 / £19.99 is either taken from any cash balance, or debit card held on the system.

Maybe they changed the process since I left.

Don't think I had a cash balance and may have funded with bank transfer. Either way, I wasn't happy with paying a monthly fee to hold stocks and felt they overstepped. I see little reason to pay this fee when other brokers out there will hold my equities for free.

[WillB]

g4ry13 said:

Maybe they changed the process since I left.

Don't think I had a cash balance and may have funded with bank transfer. Either way, I wasn't happy with paying a monthly fee to hold stocks and felt they overstepped. I see little reason to pay this fee when other brokers out there will hold my equities for free.

Yes, the switch over was a good few years ago now and they gave all account holders notice that the charge was coming and to place a debit card on their system.

A ii account is not for everyone, but for many it works out FAR cheaper than the likes of HL etc, as mentioned above.

[rustyuk]

WillB said:

g4ry13 said:

Maybe they changed the process since I left.

Don't think I had a cash balance and may have funded with bank transfer. Either way, I wasn't happy with paying a monthly fee to hold stocks and felt they overstepped. I see little reason to pay this fee when other brokers out there will hold my equities for free.

Yes, the switch over was a good few years ago now and they gave all account holders notice that the charge was coming and to place a debit card on their system.

A ii account is not for everyone, but for many it works out FAR cheaper than the likes of HL etc, as mentioned above.

II want a valid card on the account and will not use the cash balance. If no active card they will randomly sell a unit of investment to pay their fees.

They also knowingly display incorrect stock and fund prices. I've complained about this and they simply shrug their shoulders.

[bad company]

NowWatchThisDrive said:

Obviously if it requires dramatically changing your strategy and/or realising a big capital gain then may not be feasible, but if sticking to ETFs(/ITs/stocks) then the HL platform fee is capped at £45 a year; the £200 mentioned by previous poster is for SIPPs. Obviously there are dealing fees which you won't have now with your funds, but if you're an infrequent dealer then you may not be getting the most out of that benefit anyway.

My discounted platform fees at HL are very high so potentially a big saving if moved to II. I understand that I can transfer the holdings thus avoiding Capital Gains Tax.

Edited by bad company on Monday 11th March 13:06

[bad company]

WillB said:

Long time ii account holder here, have my SIPP, ISA and GIA with them, very happy with the excellent service and low fees.

There's a referal scheme that gives you a free years subscription:- https://www.ii.co.uk/recommend-ii

Drop me a PM if anyone on here wants to sign up to that

Thanks, I’ll most likely do exactly that.

[NowWatchThisDrive]

bad company said:

NowWatchThisDrive said:

Obviously if it requires dramatically changing your strategy and/or realising a big capital gain then may not be feasible, but if sticking to ETFs(/ITs/stocks) then the HL platform fee is capped at £45 a year; the £200 mentioned by previous poster is for SIPPs. Obviously there are dealing fees which you won't have now with your funds, but if you're an infrequent dealer then you may not be getting the most out of that benefit anyway.

My discounted platform fees at HL are around £90 monthly so potentially a big saving if moved to II. I understand that I can transfer the holdings thus avoiding Capital Gains Tax.

Fair enough - I just meant if you could hold ETFs instead of OEICs then HL would be way cheaper than it is for you now, and possibly cheaper than II. But depends what sort of OEICs you're holding as to whether equivalent ETFs exist - and whether CGT you'd incur by switching out of the OEICs, plus dealing fees, would leave you better/worse off in the end.

[bad company]

NowWatchThisDrive said:

Fair enough - I just meant if you could hold ETFs instead of OEICs then HL would be way cheaper than it is for you now, and possibly cheaper than II. But depends what sort of OEICs you're holding as to whether equivalent ETFs exist - and whether CGT you'd incur by switching out of the OEICs, plus dealing fees, would leave you better/worse off in the end.

I’m holding funds such as Artemis Income. The only fund in the portfolio that isn’t offered by II is HL’s own income fund. I’ll switch those to an alternative fund before transferring.

[BigMoose1973]

Interesting topic. How do you go about negotiating discounted fees with HL ? My wife and I are both paying a fortune.

[bad company]

BigMoose1973 said:

Interesting topic. How do you go about negotiating discounted fees with HL ? My wife and I are both paying a fortune.

You need to have a fair bit invested (probably over £100K) then you just ask. Either phone or use the online message on the app/website.

[Mogul]

Negotiating fees doesn’t sound very Consumer Duty-erish…

How can they justify charging customer A x% vs. Customer B y% for the same service…

Grab what’s on offer while you can (or wait for the class action suit).