LISA provider recommendations

Seeing as Freetrade doesnā€™t have interest in LISA now, whatā€™s the alternative? Looking for a Moneybox alternative that didnā€™t charge fees, or at least less costly fees per month ā€¦

I use AJ Bell YouInvest.

They let you trade individual shares and also offer the option of sitting back and sliding it into low cost funds of your choice.

Hargreaves Lamsdown also does a similar thing in their LISA but as far as Iā€™m aware they have higher fees.

Then thereā€™s the ā€œroboā€ investors Moneybox and Nutmeg. If you want to take all the enjoyment out of it and not need to think about the investments at all then these are great (you just choose a profile out of safe/moderate/risky and they will divide and allocate your money to funds and rebalance when required). They have high fees though, so definitely do the sums before signing up.

Obviously Freetrade is the go-to place for everything else other than LISAs (conscious that Iā€™m recommending competitors here! :smile:)

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For my purposes AJBell Youinvest was the cheapest. There isnā€™t much choice and competition out there currently though.

This is one of the few account types where Freetrade could be vastly superior to everyone else.

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Thanks both, I came across YouInvest too via MSE.

My concern is the charges buying shares, like Ā£9.95 to buy into an ETF?

Canā€™t quite work out if that means it would eat up most of my LISA pot, only Ā£300 in there to transfer.

Not sure I understand how it would work out cheaper than Moneybox robot investing style where the fees appear to be percentage per month

Edit: ok looks like thereā€™s a AJ bell fund with nil buy charge which seems to be the sit back and let them do the work:

When I was comparing HL and AJ Bell, I found HL having a slightly higher ongoing charge, but no charge for investing funds, however AJ Bell had a crazy high charge for the small amounts Iā€™d be investing, but the ongoing cost would be lower.

Yes I am concernedā€¦ Iā€™m not sure if with YouInvest one of the preset funds will mean I see minimal fund purchase fees or not. Itā€™s only Ā£300 I want to transfer into a new LISA wrapper, Iā€™m just trying to avoid the high Moneybox monthly fee which it tells me itself works out to be 4.59% annual fees as percentage of amount invested :roll_eyes: thatā€™s really high.

Anyone know which might be best? AJ or HL?

I just want to move it from Moneybox, and maybe add a little amount at the end of each month. Just so the fees arenā€™t so high itā€™s essentially losing money without adding any additionalā€¦

Which is cheaper will depend on exactly what you invest in (etf or fund), how often, and how much.

AJbell was cheapest for me since Iā€™m only doing a single lump sum buy per year (of an ETF).

Right, Iā€™m not sure then. Maybe itā€™ll cost me one Ā£9.95 to choose a fund when I transfer it.

Looks like I canā€™t use HL because they donā€™t do LISA transfers.

I found it scary that youinvest only offers to pay charges from inside Lisa account. Cannot pay them from general account or debit card. With HL one can. I just donā€™t want to be stuck without being able to top up the account and pay high fees when they force liquidate positions. I guess thatā€™s only a problem if one has the full Ā£4k+bonus invested.

You can pay the platform charge from your general account. Just ask support. The buy fee must be paid within the account so you lose some allowance, but you wonā€™t have to liquidate any positions.

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It is good to see two fintechs launch a market leading Lifetime Cash ISA. Curious whether this means Monzo will also get access to this from OakNorth. Anyway the full details of the Lifetime Cash ISA are on the MoneyBox website.

Itā€™ll be interesting to hear your thoughts if you do signup/transfer to this.

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I saw this from Twitter today.

But I donā€™t see the point of this over an S&S LISA. Unless thereā€™s no or very little fees? But I canā€™t see any mention about the fees. It doesnā€™t show in the app yet either. :man_shrugging:

Actually. I found the right part on the app:

The Cash option has no fees

Thatā€™s great and all, but the growth of S&S far outweighs the 1.4% of cash (so far, and expected that it will continue to do so) against the fees of the S&S LISA with Moneyboxā€¦

EDIT: So whilst Cash LISA has no fees, I donā€™t want to keep adding funds to the LISA (at this time). I just want to let the amount in it grow as much as possible up until retirement (or first home, though unlikely). And an S&S with growth closer to 5% expected is more attractive. Just Moneybox fees are high.

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Not a big draw for me either. However, I do understand how this is appealing from a risk perspective.

Still good news, as it creates more competition, for comparison the second best rate for a Cash LISA is 1.10%. Great example of fintechs delivering on the shaking up the market. They are getting really great coverage as well.

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https://www.moneyboxapp.com/faqs/can-i-transfer-my-moneybox-stocks-shares-lifetime-isa-to-a-moneybox-cash-lifetime-isa/

Canā€™t move it within Moneybox anyhow.

I suspect the number of people who want to move within Moneybox will be small so they focused their resources accordingly. They do mention they are working on it.

Out of interest which provider are you using for your S&S LISA?

My S&S LISA is with Moneybox.

I am toying with going with YouInvest on a preset fund with them, which I think was a flat 0.45%. But I canā€™t act on it right now as Iā€™m outside the UK.

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Iā€™ve got my LISA with HL but will happily move to FT down the line. Iā€™ve been with HL for 11 years and their service and features are excellent but itā€™s correct to say their fees are too high, but I like how easy it is to pay the fees from the general investment account so I am easily able to ring fence the fees. I donā€™t wanā€™t to move to say AJ Bell now and then to FT again after another year or so, so Iā€™ll wait and see how FT progresses. Overall the HL LISA works well.

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I use Nutmeg for just the LISA

And other investments on FT

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Thereā€™s various issues with these options. Each product is seemingly targeted at different groups of people or lacks necessary features.

HL has a min of Ā£1k from what I can see. Nutmeg doesnā€™t do transfers. So continually Iā€™m stuck with Moneybox fees(which of Ā£300 invested, the fees are around 4.5% of this!) unless I move over to AJ and YouInvest (where there should be flat 0.45% fees)

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