The article points out that HL makes most of its money from the horrendous and unjustified ongoing fees they charge customers on funds.
This is bad for freetrade if you only compare trading feed as I think HL can and will at some point cut their trading fees in order to compete.
However in the long term I think freetrade will be able to say to customers that they donāt guide you into terrible products in order to make money - Iād almost start emphasising this now in marketing, because it will become far more relevant in the coming recession, and it is their long term advantage over fund brokers (and also over revolut IMO due to products like cryptocurrencies, and over other free brokers who trade in CFDs). I hope freetrade never offer active funds or cryptocurrencies so they avoid this minefield of misaligned incentives.
What it does mean is that freetrade needs to reach significant scale in usercount in order to make significant money from its flat fee structure - so number of users (and number of Alpha above all) is what counts for freetrade, whereas assets under management in funds specifically is what matters to HL. In the long term I think that is encouraging though - Freetradeās interests are aligned with customers, whereas HL needs those fat fees to survive, so it will inevitably have more woodfords (a fund it pushed really heavily for years).
So probably freetrade needs to start adding a few more standout features to alpha, perhaps it can have free sipps for example, or more sophisticated tools like limit orders for free (still the most voted for idea by customers), and they also need to introduce many beginners to investing.
I think itās worth noting though with HL they have significant overheads, and being a PLC wonāt be able to cut fees as much as you think, as they need to show consistent growth else the share price will drop.
Freetrade appear to be one of the disruptors who are setup with minimal overheads (like Aldi/lidl) and we know how thatās gone. Supermarkets took absolutely forever to lower prices to compete after theyād already lost a substantial market share.
In a recession, or, even with possible negative interest rates (imagine for the standard high street bank?) Shares will surely be the way to go, and freetrade will be one of the top picks in that regard
Well I was a HL customer for years and now Iām with Freetrade. Iām sure I wonāt be the only one.
I will certainly sign up to Alpha.
I keep an eye on HLās own funds and I can see the funds are shrinking significantly in size. One was 5 billion and now sits under 3.
My real optimism for Freetrade is 1st time investors for whom Freetrade will turn on the lightbulb.
I also agree with many people who say there is room for multiple providers and many people will like to have ISAās with more than 1 provider (in different tax years of course 
).
After Woodford U-turn Hargreaves admits it was wrong to back Burford
If youāre including SIPPs in Alpha - Freetrade will never become profitableā¦ certain products which will include large sums of money need to charge larger fees. If you pay nothing on trades and Ā£7 a month for your entire pensionā¦ there is no way that Freetrade could operate profitably with that. Undercutting HL etc is a good strategy but you still need sensible pricing.
On the other hand it gets more people on Alpha who might only have paid say Ā£5 for a sipp. Thereās a few tradeoffs here and either option would be fine if they cost it out. I think Alpha should be Ā£10, are they planning Ā£7 now?
The actual cost to freetrade doesnāt really scale with AUM does it?
I think FT should add bond savings ,if tandem can we should add cash management savings and ft makes money also.
I disagree. That makes FT effectively a bank and comes with another massive overhead. Itās to no real benefit to investors or customers. Monzo offers almost everything tandem offers anyway.
Monzo also has incredibly bad press in regards to its plus offering and trying to milk customers for money at the minute
Itās not a bad time to jump into the market.
I donāt think this is true, could you please share the press articles saying Monzo is trying to milk the customers?
Iām aware of the storm happening in the Monzo forum about plus, Iām also there criticising Monzo choices on this regard, but havenāt seen any press covering this, and most of the press about Monzo is positive.
Monzo was built on word of mouth and I believe thatās how this is spreading and will be fondly remembered from any Monzo Plus subscriber and anyone on the forums critiquing the decisions that theyāve made
Iām not referring to press articles as such when I say this - just that people will be pretty happy to explain why Monzo isnāt the best idea to bank with
As much as I trust some news sources I trust people telling me things more, and I think most are the same
For instance Iāve managed to stop 10+ people signing up to Monzo from casually mentioning that theyāre actually more expensive
Ok, so youāre not talking about press per se.
Still I think saying they have āincredible bad pressā is an exaggeration. The Plus offering has been poorly managed from the beginning, and Iām one of the Monzo customers voicing my disappointment, but I still think Monzo is one of the best choices (together with Starling) currently in the market, and I still think they are one of the most transparent banks.
What have you suggested instead of Monzo?
Depends on their needs
Most of my friends are students so Iāve been recommending Starling and a high street bank for their student account.
Also been recommending Revolut based on their multi-currency aspect.
Besides that Iāve been pretty keen in recommending a solid dedicated budgeting app (Like Yolt) or perhaps YNAB.
However I donāt really see where Monzo slots into anything.
Students want no fees and an easy way to see their money being used + an easy way to let their money work for them.
Monzo just nickel and dime you on any lending (50p a day for a 20.01 overdraft) and donāt really have any standout features besides Tabs.
Iāve lived in 4 western countries so far and Monzo is the best banking experience by miles. I am not a plus user, so cannot comment on that. But the basic model is amazingly done and genius. The original comparison to tandem is hence being made between Monzo savings pots from different banks and tandem. Roughly the same rates are offered, but Monzo offers much more around this service, which means it wins in a landslide.
I would personally disagree
But I think weāre derailing now so we should kill it
As Iām sure you suspect, we align our commercial incentives with the best interest of our customers (we wrote about it at length in the pricing model announcement). 
We hate zero sum and information assymetry.
some of us are shareholders, donāt forget about shareholders 
Fix savings is a benefit as ft would earn from some of the interest, hl offers this also and soon Robinhood and others in the states, it can be a benefit of having alpha accounts.