Updated: 23rd March 2022
Hargreaves Lansdown Review
The UK’s largest, and one of the oldest, investment platforms. Packed with features and functionality, and supported by a quality service too.
Overall Score 4
Overall Score
Our View
What accounts are available?
Pretty much every type of account is available from Hargreaves Lansdown. Two reasons – they are the market leader and have been around pretty much since the start of DIY platforms. This means they have had the time to develop a full suite of products with all the bells and whistles. You can even save cash with them. One minor ommision is the fact their ISA isn’t flexible, meaning you can’t take out money and pay it back in during the same tax year, without it counting against your annual ISA limit twice.
We upweighted scores for providers who had the basic accounts available - ISA, SIPP and GIA.
Score
What kind of investments can I make?
A full 5 marks here for Hargreaves Lansdown. They literally offer all the types of investment any inexperienced (and the experienced ones too) would want. That means they also allow investments in bonds (IOUs issued by companies and governments) and companies listed on stock exchanges outside London. Great if you’re looking to invest directly in things like American technology companies. Funds, also known as OEICs or Unit Trusts, are the firm’s bread and butter and they offer literally thousands of them. A wide choice does mean there’s a fair bit to navigate through, but they have built filters, lists and tools to help.
We upweighted scores for providers who made funds, investment trusts, exchange traded funds and UK shares available. Bonds and international shares were less important.
Score
What services do they offer?
Again one of the benefits of being around since the beginning of time (1981 in this context!) is that Hargreaves have had time to build out their service offering. This means they have pretty much everything you need whether it’s a brilliant call centre with real humans who know their onions, or extensive research tools to help you find the right investment for your needs.
The most important services were monthly investing, and dividend reinvestment, so we upweighted scores for platforms who provided these services.
Score
How much does it cost?
Hargreaves Lansdown has something of a repuation as being ‘reassuringly expensive’. Yes, you generally do get what you pay for when it comes to investment platforms, but in truth given the service and account offering, Hargreaves is not that expensive. In fact, if you invest only in investments listed on a stock exchange like investment trusts or shares, their platform fee is capped at a very reasonable rate. Watch out with funds though – the bigger the value of your funds portfolio, the more you will pay, and there’s no cap.