Updated: 18th January 2022
Interactive Investor Review
The second largest platform in the UK, and comes with a flat charging structure. Lots of free online content to help you make investment decisions.
Watch our Interactive Investor review
Overall Score 3.5
Overall Score
Our View
What accounts are available?
There’s not a bad choice of accounts at Interactive Investor, but it’s not as complete as some other platforms – for example, there’s no Junior SIPP or Lifetime ISAs. It’s also worth noting that the stocks and shares ISA that is on offer is not what they call ‘flexible’. This is a shame as it means 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. That being said a General Investment Account (GIA) and Self Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) are both available and you can use the SIPP for accumlation and decumualtion of your pension funds.
We upweighted scores for providers who had the basic accounts available - ISA, SIPP and GIA.
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What kind of investments can I make?
Like the other long established players, II score full marks here. Having launched in 1995 (at one point using the Halifax Share Dealing Service as their platform provider in the background) they have had plenty of time to develop a service offering to cover all the main investment types. As well as a wide range of available investments there are myriad ways to help you make sense of them and find what you’re looking for: there are share tips and ideas, top funds, quick start funds, a Super 60 list, an ethical list and model portfolios.
We upweighted scores for providers who made funds, investment trusts, exchange traded funds and UK shares available. Bonds and international shares were less important.
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What services do they offer?
There’s a full range of support and services available, as you might expect from the second largest DIY platform in the UK. You can access your account online, via the telephone or via a IOS and Android friendly app. There’s also plenty of editorial content to help you on your way, with free-to-access articles, videos and podcasts. There’s also a whole section called the Knowledge Centre which we like as its deliberately aimed at inexperienced investors and covers everything from how to get started to choosing specific types of funds. There’s an extensive news section too to keep you up-to-date on what’s happing in the investing world.
The most important services were monthly investing, and dividend reinvestment, so we upweighted scores for platforms who provided these services.
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How much does it cost?
This is where we have a bit of an issue with Interactive Investor – cost. They have been big champions of flat fees and make much of how much you can save compared with the percentage based fees other platforms charge. The problem is that for smaller investment portfolios, the costs look high. So for our example of a £20,000 ISA, they are the most expensive platform around by some margin. Granted, this would look better value if your pot is much, much bigger, but for those of use starting out with smaller amounts it will be expensive relative to some other options. That being said, it’s a quality platform with a wide choice.