Pull up a chair and enjoy the investment platform price war

A price war is finally underway among fund supermarkets. Merryn Somerset Webb looks at what that means for your investing.

We love a price war. And it looks like one is really getting going among the online fund supermarkets and brokers. This week Hargreaves Lansdown's new charging structure kicked off with most clients being charged a basic levy of 0.45% of their assets every year.

That makes them cheaper for most people than they were (particularly given that they have also negotiated down substantially the management fees of the big funds they sell on). But it still leaves them at the top end in terms of overall pricing.

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iWeb (www.iweb-sharedealing.co.uk)£25 account opening charge. Sipp: £22.50 a quarter under £50k; £45 over£5Yes
Interactive Investor (www.iii.co.uk)£20 per quarter (dropped if you also have a Sipp); Sipp: £144 a year£10 (first £20 per quarter knocked off quarterly fee) + frequent trader discountYes
Alliance Trust Savings (www.alliancetrustsavings.co.uk)£22.50 per quarter. Sipp: £186 a year£12.50 + frequent trader discountYes
Charles Stanley Direct (www.charles-stanley-direct.co.uk)0.25% a year on first £500,000 of funds, then 0.15%; 0.25% on shares & ETFs (max £150). Sipp: £120 a year£0 on funds; £10 on ETFs and sharesYes
Cavendish Online (www.cavendishonline.co.uk)0.25% a year£0 on funds; 0.1% on ETFs and sharesNo
Hargreaves Lansdown (www.hl.co.uk)0.45% a year on first £250k of funds; 0.25% on next £750k. Shares Isa: 0.45% p.a. (max £45) on ETFs, shares and bonds. Sipp: 0.45% p.a. (max £200) charge on same£0 on funds; £11.95 on ETFs and shares + frequent trader discountYes
Youinvest (www.youinvest.co.uk)0.2% p.a. on funds (max. £200); Sipp: £5 a quarter for £10K or less; £15 on £10K to £20K; £25 on 20K+£4.95 on funds; £9.95 on ETFs and shares + frequent trader discountYes
Fidelity (www.fidelity.co.uk)0.35% p.a. on first £250,000 of funds and ETFs; £5.10 monthly for share account£9 for ETFs and sharesNo
The Share Centre (www.share.com)£1.80 to £14.40 a month, depending on account type1% (£7.50 min) + frequent trader discountYes
Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.