Hargreaves Lansdown review

We say
★★★★★
Finder expert rating

You say
★★★★★
Customer satisfaction

Good range of investments options

Expensive when you don't trade frequently

Easy, low-cost account with the UK's biggest investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown

Your capital is at risk.

• UK’s largest investment manager with huge range of investments
• Invest in funds, global shares, bonds, ETFs and more
• Detailed online resources and Bristol-based helpdesk available
• Open an account in minutes with your debit card and NI number

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Capital at risk

All investing should be regarded as longer term. The value of your investments can go up and down, and you may get back less than you invest. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. If you’re not sure which investments are right for you, please seek out a financial adviser. Capital at risk.

Hargreaves Lansdown is the UK’s biggest and most comprehensive wealth manager, so it’s not the cheapest. This “investment supermarket” is a popular choice for investors. It’s a bit on the pricey side but it makes up for it with its mobile app and easy trades. We’ve called HL one of our best trading apps of 2020. Find out about how to set up a Hargreaves Lansdown account, about the HL ISA and some pros and cons.

What is Hargreaves Lansdown?

Hargreaves Lansdown is a leading “investment supermarket” for private investors. It is trusted with £96 billion worth of investment by 1.3 million clients.

The Fund & Share Account is a low cost, flexible investment account that allows you to deal, manage and hold a wide range of investments. It is aimed at those who are comfortable making their own investment decisions, without financial advice. There’s also a self invested personal pension (SIPP), junior SIPP and several different ISAs available.

Read on to find out more about Hargreaves Lansdown, and whether it might be the right investment solution for you.

How does Hargreaves Lansdown work?

To start investing with Hargreaves Lansdown, you’ll need to open an account.
The right account for you will depend on your goals. You might be saving for the future, for a pension pot or for your child.
Hargreaves Lansdown can help you narrow things down and find the right account, allowing you to compare accounts and tick things which apply to you.
To open an account with Hargreaves Lansdown, you’ll need:

• Your National Insurance number
• Your debit card details
• Your bank details to set up monthly payments

What products does Hargreaves Lansdown offer?

Hargreaves Lansdown offers seven products:

• Stocks and shares ISA
• Junior ISA
• Lifetime ISA
• Self-invested personal pension
• Junior SIPP
• Share dealing account
• Active savings

What can you invest in with Hargreaves Lansdown?

• Funds

  Popular with many investors, funds offer exposure to a professionally managed portfolio. From as little as £100, start investing today.

  • Choose from over 2,500 unit trusts and OEICs from leading fund managers including Invesco Perpetual, Artemis and Jupiter
  • Market beating savings and discounts
  • No charge for buying and selling funds
  • Free analysis and updates from the Hargreaves Lansdown research team

• Shares

  Hargreaves Lansdown’s Shares services are low cost and comprehensive. UK, US, Canada and European shares are all covered.

  • Free limit orders and stop losses
  • Tips and reports emailed for free
  • No charge for buying and selling funds
  • No inactivity charge or annual management cost

• Investment trusts

  Investment trusts are similar to funds as they offer exposure to a professionally managed portfolio.

  • Choose from over 400 investment trusts and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)
  • Free limit orders and stop losses

• Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)

  With an ETF, you can track a range of stock market indices and commodities effectively and cheaply. ETFs are traded like shares as they are listed investments.

  • Free limit orders and stop losses
  • Choose from over 1,300 exchange traded products
  • No annual management cost

• Gilts & Corporate Bonds

  Hargreaves Lansdown also offers a bond dealing service, giving you access to a wide range of gilts and corporate bonds.

  • Choose from over 700 gilts and corporate bonds
  • No annual management cost
  • View data for hundreds of bonds, gilts and PIBS

• Cash

  It is possible to open your account with cash, and pick your investments later.

Hargreaves Lansdown individual savings accounts

As with all ISAs, you get an annual allowance. This is the amount of money you can invest in the tax-year, of which all of your profits are tax-free. Once you’ve used up your ISA allowance for the year, you can continue investing with a general investment account. Different types of ISA have different allowances, which we detail below.

Stocks and shares ISA

Your annual allowance for a stocks and shares ISA is £20,000 in both the 2019/2020 tax year and the 2020/2021 tax year.

With Hargreaves Lansdown’s stocks and shares ISA you can choose to either create a DIY portfolio or use a ready-made portfolio based on your goals and attitude to risk.

Benefits of a DIY portfolio include:

• You decide which shares to buy and sell
• Hargreaves Lansdown’s research helps you make decisions
• Start with £100 or £25 per month

Benefits of ready-made portfolios include:

• Have a portfolio based on your risk appetite
• Hargreaves Lansdown will buy and sell investments for you
• Start with £1,000

Lifetime ISA (LISA)

Lifetime ISAs are for investing for your first home or for your retirement. You can choose between a stocks and shares LISA or a cash ISA.

Your annual allowance for a LISA is £4,000 in each tax year. The government will add an additional 25%. This allowance is included in the £20,000 stocks and shares ISA allowance, so if you invest £4,000 in a LISA, you only have £16,000 remaining for the year.

Junior ISA (JISA)

The allowance for the 2020/2021 tax year is £9,000. This means that you can save up to this much in your child’s junior ISA without paying any tax on the earnings.

The junior ISA is for children under 18 years old. It’s managed by a legal parent or guardian, until the child turns 18, when it is automatically transferred to them. Benefits of the JISA include:

• Invest up to the annual allowance without paying tax on earnings
• Friends and family can pay money in
• Start with £100 or £25 per month

Hargreaves Lansdown pensions, annuities and drawdown options

Self-invested personal pension (SIPP)

Self invested personal pensions are suitable for people who want to make their own investment decisions – this means it’s in your hands – there’s no hand-holding. If you don’t know what to invest in, or whether an investment is right for you, Hargreaves Lansdown does have advisers that can help you, although this is at an additional charge.

You’ll get the same tax relief with a SIPP as you do with other pensions. You can add up to £40,000 to your pension (if you’re a UK resident under 75).

Junior SIPP

For the ultra-orgnanised parent or guardian, you have the option to open a junior SIPP for your child. This works pretty much like the Junior ISA and the SIPP combined – there’s a £3,600 allowance per child per tax year, of which the government will pay 20% tax relief. The “child” (they won’t be a child by the time) can only access the money when they turn 55 (57 from 2028).

If you’re looking for a way to invest in your child’s long term future, this could be suitable. If you’d prefer them to have access to the funds when they’re 18, consider the Junior ISA instead.

Retirement options

For those who are about to retire, Hargreaves Lansdown offers:

• Annuity (a guaranteed income for life, in return for a pot of pension savings)
• Drawdown (where you “draw down” funds from your invested pension pot to give you an income)

• Annuity

  An integral part of the UK’s pension system, an annuity is a type of retirement income product that you can purchase with some (or all) of your pension pot. It pays you a regular income for the rest of your life or an agreed period.

  • Access to annuity quotations from the whole of the market
  • “Best Rate Promise”
  • No charge for buying and selling funds
  • Free analysis and updates from the Hargreaves Lansdown research team

• Drawdown

  Take a variable income from your pension pot, whilst keeping some of it invested.

  • Good if you want to access your pension and keep invested
  • Allows you to take out tax-free cash at the start
  • Allows the option for taking unlimited taxable withdrawals

Share dealing: Fund and Share account

Hargreaves Lansdown’s fund and share account lets you buy and sell shares, investment trusts, exchange-traded funds and bonds. You build your portfolio yourself.
Benefits to a Fund and Share account include:

• Easily manage investments online, through the Hargreaves Lansdown app or by phone
• Free to hold shares
• Discover investment opportunities with a wide range of tools

Cash savings

Hargreaves Lansdown offers a service called “Active Savings” which gives you returns on cash savings. Instead of having to shop around for savings accounts and move your savings yourself, Hargreaves Lansdown allows you to swap to a new savings account with a better rate without all the hassle. This is a nice service and allows you to make the most out of the offers on the market.

Does Hargreaves Lansdown have an app?

Yes. And it’s pretty good, too! It uses Face ID and fingerprint technology to keep it secure. Some things you can do with the Hargreaves Lansdown app include:

• See live share prices
• Trade on the go
• Keep an eye on specific investments
• Manage your investments
• View your history
• Top up

The Hargreaves Lansdown app is available on iOS and Android.

Hargreaves Lansdown fees and charges

• ISA Charges

  If you hold funds in your ISA:

  Value of funds	Charge (per year)
  On the first £250,000	0.45%
  On the value between £250,000 and £1 million	0.25%
  On the value between £1 million and £2 million	0.1%
  On the value over £2 million	No charge

  If you hold shares in your ISA:
  For all UK and overseas shares, investment trusts, exchange-traded funds, VCTs, gilts and bonds Hargreaves Lansdown charges 0.45% per year with a cap of £45 per year.

• SIPP charges

  If you hold funds in your SIPP:

  Value of funds	Charge (per year)
  On the first £250,000	0.45%
  On the value between £250,000 and £1 million	0.25%
  On the value between £1 million and £2 million	0.1%
  On the value over £2 million	No charge

  If you hold shares in your SIPP:
  For all UK and overseas shares, investment trusts, exchange-traded funds, VCTs, gilts and bonds, Hargreaves Lansdown charges 0.45% per year with a cap of £200 per year.

• Share dealing charges

  (Including UK or overseas, ETFs, gilts, corporate bonds, VCTs and investment trusts.)

  Number of deals	Charge
  0-9 deals	£11.95 per deal
  10-19 deals	£8.95 per deal
  20 or more deals	£5.95 per deal

• Fund dealing

  There is no charge for fund dealing (including Unit Trusts and OEICs).

• Other charges

  Description	Charge
  UK Stamp Duty	0.5% on purchases of UK shares (rounded up to the nearest £5 for residual shares)
  Panel on Takeover and Mergers	£1 on UK share deals over £10,000
  Irish Stamp Duty	1% on purchases of Irish shares
  French Financial Transactions Tax	0.3% on purchases of some French shares
  Italian Financial Transactions Tax	0.1% on purchases of some Italian shares
  Telephone share dealing	1% of the trade value, minimum charge £20, maximum charge £50.
  Direct Debit into investments for FTSE 250 shares and selected investment trusts and ETFs	£1.50 per stock per month
  Cash withdrawals	No charge
  Account closure	No charge
  Automated sales to cover charges (selling fund units or shares to cover fees)	£1.50 per deal for shares. No charge for funds.
  Quarterly statement and valuation (paperless)	No charge
  Quarterly statement and valuation (paper)	£20 + VAT per year
  Transfer out (as cash or stock)	No charge

How safe is my investment with Hargreaves Lansdown?

When it comes to security, Hargreaves Lansdown is trusted by thousands of customers and is considered to be a secure FTSE 100 company that has been managing investments for 35 years.

Your investments are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which means that you’ll be able to claim up to £85,000 if Hargreaves Lansdown was to go bust.

How do I decide which account is for me?

You need to work out what it is you want from your investment. Are you looking to put a bit of money away each month? Do you want returns on your investment?

You need to work out what you need before comparing the different offers available. Once you’ve done that, useful guidelines to compare include:

• Where you can invest
• Fees (if there are any)
• Access to ISAs
• Potential Returns

Pros and cons

Pros

• Plenty of investment options
• Great educational tools to help beginners find their way around
• Charging caps if you hold shares

Cons

• No demo account available
• Fees can be quite high for ETFs

Hargreaves Lansdown customer reviews

Hargreaves Lansdown’s customers are really impressed with its service. They feel that the customer service staff are friendly, efficient and that they go out of their way to explain things. Customers felt that the platform is straightforward and really easy to use.

A couple of customers mentioned high prices but they felt that the standard of service made up for it.

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Our verdict

Hargreaves Lansdown has everything you could ask for in an investment platform. It was built with both experienced investors and beginners in mind, with plenty of educational tools and some options for those who want a bit of hand-holding along the way.

There isn’t a demo account available, though. You’d need to use a different platform if you want to try out share trading with virtual funds.

Compare share trading options

• Share dealing platforms
• Stocks and shares ISAs
• Pensions

All investing should be regarded as longer term. The value of your investments can go up and down, and you may get back less than you invest. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. If you’re not sure which investments are right for you, please seek out a financial adviser. Capital at risk.

Frequently asked questions

• Can I transfer my existing ISA to Hargreaves Lansdown?

  Yes. You just need to let Hargreaves Lansdown know, and it’ll take care of it for you.

• How does Hargreaves Lansdown pay dividends?

  You can choose to either have your dividends paid into a nominated bank account or you can have them reinvested.

• Does Hargreaves Lansdown have ethical investing options?

  Yes. There’s a whole guide on ethical investing on its website, too!

All investing should be regarded as longer term. The value of your investments can go up and down, and you may get back less than you invest. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. If you’re not sure which investments are right for you, please seek out a financial adviser. Capital at risk.