IG introducing cutody fees

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16th Jan '18 by Mark Carter

9 comments 5551 reads

I had an email from IG stockbrokers earlier. It seems that they will be introducting "custody fees" of £24 per quarter. It is offset by commission you pay, and seems like a weez to generate churn, and hence commission.

I don't deal regularly, so I want out. Can anyone recommend an execution-only broker?

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Mark Carter

Premium Member

9 comments

willhampson

16th Jan '18

Hi, if you're looking for a simple share dealing account I would strongly recommend X-O; £5.95 p/trade and no custody or account charges. They are also pretty helpful and responsive over the phone as well if you need assistance or want to place an order. I don't think they offer many funds and have no overseas stocks, but for a simple U.K. focused share dealing account I would recommend them highly.

AZEEM7652

17th Jan '18

Hi I have been using IWEB which is part of Halifax sharedealing but only charges £5 per deal including USA and Europe shares as well. They do have a fee for joining but no other charges such as admin fees. I would recommend them and can confirm that I have not had any problems since they launched a few years back.

Andrew L

17th Jan '18

The ongoing fees from III and IG show that fixed fee platforms are only good if you have a fair amount invested in them. For small amounts it is cheaper to go with a % fee platform such as Youinvest. For example, if you opened a SIPP with III straight away you would have fees which I think are £200 a year or something like that. If you did the same with Youinvest you would only have a % charge of around 0.25% or something. So Youinvest is cheaper when you start saving along with Hargreaves Lansdown. However, IG is still the cheapest place you can have an ISA/SIPP and deal in foreign shares (FX fee I think 0.3% versus 1% or 1.5% from rivals).

garrywilson0309

17th Jan '18

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Bonitabeach

17th Jan '18

iWEB: "only charges £5 per deal including USA and Europe shares as well."

Ignore foreign exchange charges at your peril: iWEB charge 1.5%; that's £300 on a £20,000 trade!

Bonitabeach

Mark Carter

18th Jan '18

Thanks guys. Your input has been useful to me.

I had an ISA with TD Waterhouse, which was recently taken over by Interactive Investor. Interactive Investor has a platform fee, so now that's two lots of fees. Fees were "slipped under the radar", I feel.

I sat down and thought about it, and I think the way forward is to transfer my ISA to IG. I'll probably generate enough trades so that I'll be paying nil extra fees at IG.

My trading has slowed right down over the last year, so I now may only make 2 trades a month: one buy, one sell. Last month I didn't make any.

BTW, I have accounts with Halifax and Hargreaves Lansdown, which I would recommend. I like to spread my money around so that in the event of a default, at least I'm not completely wiped out. I'm still a little leary of nominee accounts. Last I heard, Interactive Brokers leant out shares. That's good for their profits, but creates counterparty risk for me and others.

People may say I am being overly paranoid, but if/when the brown stuff hits the fan, it can really spray itself everywhere.

I did make inquiries into Redmayne Bentley, which actually has an office not too far away from me. They seemed rather pricey to me, and they wanted a custody charge on any ISAs held with them. So I can't see myself signing on with them. I think they have actual brokers making the trades, so maybe they can negotiate better prices than you can normally find online. If anyone has any comments to make on that, I'd be willing to hear them.

Andrew L

18th Jan '18

Mark - you can do fee simulations at websites like this: www.comparefundplatforms.com/ As stated, % fee platforms are cheaper for smaller amounts and higher for larger amounts versus fixed fee platforms. Interactive charge a fixed fee but that is also a trading credit. So if you do a few trades a quarter then you have no fee. A good thing about fixed fees is you know what you will be charged. At the end of the day, though, the platform quality may be more important than the fee.

Mark Carter

18th Jan '18

In terms of quality, I think IG is the best platform I've used. I did have Interactive Investor for awhile, and they were pretty good, too.

Halifax is simple and straightforward enough. I have found Hargreaves Lansdown and TD Waterhouse to be somewhat counterintuitive; although you can get there eventually.

Mark Carter

18th Jan '18

One extra point about IG: they really need to sort their maths out! I get statements that are wrong when I compare them with the available balance online. There's a charge (stockmarket levy fee, IIRC) that they don't properly account for in the statements.

They also seemed to have problems generating tax certificates. All other brokers produce them in a timely fashion, but IG really took their time. I think (maybe) that their regular stockbroking account was a new feature, or something, so they needed to iron out that the certs.

But other than that, they are fine.

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IG introducing cutody fees

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Mark Carter

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