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Hargreaves Lansdown unveils new charges

Hargreaves Lansdown has finally unveiled its new charging structure to comply with the impending ban on platform receiving trail commissions from funds. As with other firms, this represents a major shake-up of its business model for funds, but the impact on equity investors was limited. The major changes are:

  • The custody fee for equities, ETFs and investment trusts in an ISA or SIPP was cut to 0.45% per year, from 0.5%, in line with the new charge for funds. The caps of £45 for an ISA and £200 for a SIPP remain unchanged.
  • Investment trusts held in a regular dealing account will also be charged at 0.45% (max £45), as in an ISA. The new charge does not apply to shares and ETFs. This decision seems to be proving unpopular along clients and understandably so. It might reflect a fear that clients could begin switching out of open-end funds (especially non-trail paying ones where custody fees were relatively low under the old model, but will now be 0.45%) into investment trusts.
  • There is now a £10+VAT fee for some corporate actions (rights issues and other events “requiring us to seek and act on your instructions”).
  • Closing an account will now carry a £25+VAT fee.

The new charges will take effect from 1st March (with the exception of the account closure fee, which comes in from June). I have updated Hargreaves Lansdown’s entry in the broker directory and the UK online stockbroker table.

The impact on investors who hold funds will be much greater. Many should be better off, as the combination of the 0.45% custody charge and lower TERs on clean share classes of funds should mean lower total costs than on the old commission-paying share classes. However, some investors – for example those who hold Vanguard index funds, which didn’t pay trail and were previously subject to a fixed custody charge of a few pounds per year – will often be much worse off, as they will now attract the uncapped 0.45% fee.

I’ll overhaul the UK fund supermarket table when brokers have finished announced their revised pricing; at the moment, the industry is in flux and picking a platform is difficult because there is little clarity on which will still look cheap in a few months. In the meantime, Justin Modray’s Candid Money is doing an excellent job of tracking what each broker has announced so far on funds.

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