The DIY investment industry has taken on bad habits

Moving your share portfolio between platforms can be a smart move. But since the big players have taken on the banks' old tricks, mind you don't get fleeced doing it.

In this week's magazine (out on Thursday), I write about the endless efforts of our big banks to avoid having to actually compete on price. They look like they are trying to do so they keep cutting headline mortgage rates and raising headline savings rates but look at the reams of terms and conditions that come with any given product and you will see that the best buy rates are only the beginning of the deal.

Almost all savings accounts come with bonus arrangements that only last 12 months and most mortgages come with ludicrously high "arrangement" fees, all of which make attempting to compare products based on their advertised rates to be all but impossible. It's very irritating.

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up
Explore More
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.