[Feature Request 🔧] Lifetime ISA (LISA) 👶🏻👵🏾

If Freetrade could just give us a “Yes/No” on whether LISAs are coming this year then it could save me a fortune on AJ ****ing ****ing ****ing ****ing Bell’s £9.99 ****ing BUY fees and then AJ ****ing ****ing ****ing ****ing Bell’s £9.99 ****ing SELL fees when I want to rescue my savings from there and transfer it to Freetrade.

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Not a fan then I take it :joy::joy:

Don’t forget 1% Forex fee each way on US shares :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

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Usually one can reduce the buy fee to 1.50 if you opt in, for one off, regular purchase which happens around the 10-12th for many shares and ETFs.

Ie. Top up however you need to top up, and then do the regular purchase.

One can repeat that when the government bonus lands too.

would 100% move my LISA over if you had LISA.

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If anyone has been following this thread don’t forget to vote Here for this to be something to be discussed at the AMA on 12th May.

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Has there been any update on the addition of LISAs ?
Trying to convince friends to Join FT, however they’re looking for a platform which offers them :man_shrugging:

Bad news I’m afraid - @adam gave us this update recently.

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Ah that makes sense, as much as I’d like LISAs to be available I’d much rather they prioritize anything that helps the European launches

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whats currently the best value stocks and shares lisa on the market?

I invest into Shares and ETFs only. For me AjBell You invest is the best.

But it depends how big your Lisa is, and what you want to invest into.

HL could be cheaper for some account sizes and types of things one invests into.

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My LISA is only a couple of years. I’m in a fortunate position that we are buying a house over the limit. So I just wanted to invest it in a few etfs, leave it and forget it for a while now.

I don’t plan to contribute to it anymore

I still transfer £4k from S&S ISA → LISA each year, to collect £1k bonus. It feels like I am not contributing any new money, just recycling ISA gains into LISA to collect £1k bonus. Feels a bit like passing GO in monopoly.

AjBell is okish, be careful to pick things that are priced in GBP and that accumulate / reinvest dividends. Once I didn’t realise that I bought a distribution unit type instead of accumulation one. And play around with sample portfolios / transactions to figure out how expensive it is to setup and maintain per year.

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With new commission-free stock trading ups popping up what seems like everyday and big fintechs adding stock trading as an afterthought (e.g. Wise), one of FT’s key differentiators is its tax-advantaged accounts. ISAs and SIPPs are a great start but to really nail it LISAs and JISAs are needed.

The markets for those two accounts are criminally underserved. Any savvy young person not yet on the property ladder (which IMO is most of FTs target userbase) will be contributing to their LISA first and ISA second and will be forced to use stodgy incumbent brokers such as AJ Bell. I really don’t understand why it isn’t a priority to get LISAs out the door.

They involve extra ops overhead but the average LISA account will only require 1 lengthy interaction per account (sending the money to a solicitor) and I imagine the average LISA account is open for years before that happens.

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We don’t use that kind of foul language here.

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I’ve never really looked into a LISA as I was in the advanced stages of buying my first home when they became a thing… I’m starting to look now mind you.

S&S LISA, above all other product types out there, seems to really fit in with Freetrade’s philosophy. The low ceiling to get the maximum bonus is in reach for a greater number of people, there’s a clear carrot up front and a clear disincentive to just take the money and run for reasons other than buying a home or retiring. Stocks and Shares LISAs really don’t seem to be well marketed, I can only assume they’re unattractive to providers? Not sure if that’s cost of complexity; I don’t fully understand whether there are restrictions in what you can hold in a LISA vs an ISA?

Either way, +1 from me on this. Appreciate the news from May/June wasn’t great but the implication is that it’s potentially on the table in 2022. Here’s hoping.

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Maybe they just don’t know what is the best pricing model for this?

Or maybe there’s a misunderstanding of the name and they’re thinking that we should WAIT a lifetime for this ISA product to become available…

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Voted. Hopefully, Freetrade can offer a Lisa at some point in the new tax year. I’d love to be able to switch mine and have all my accounts under one roof.

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I always think it’s weird when people tag the two top staff at Freetrade with a personal post on the forum but here goes…

@Viktor @adam I just deposited my entire 2021/22 LISA allowance to AJ Bell in one lump sum. This is money I wanted to deposit into Freetrade.

I’ll likely do the same thing for the coming tax year, keep it all ringfenced until the last minute before having to give it to AJ Bell… just in the hope that Freetrade have LISAs and LISA transfers in place before April 5th 2023!

I don’t know if you guys will see this message but yelling/mooing into the ether makes me feel better! Besides, there could be plenty more people like me itching to give LISA allowances to Freetrade. Take care and thanks for the recent surge of development on FT!

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