Charges for regular monthly investment

[samsg]

Hi,

 

I can't find any reference on IG charges for the regular monthly investments in ISA / SIPP and Trading account.

 

So, let say in SIPP account, if I place instruction to invest £1000 per monthly regularly (via direct debit) in 6 different ETF/Funds/Shares , what are the charges taken by IG for those regular 6 monthly transactions? These are different from manually buying / selling shares.

 

I have gone through forum and IG ISA share dealing account charges but can't find reference to the changes they take for regular monthly investment.

 

[Fletch]

If you want your deposits to be automatically invested, then IG Smart Portfolios are probably the only option IG provide that is close to what you are looking for, the charges are listed as being 0.72% per year for holdings <£50,000 :

https://www.ig.com/uk/investments/smart-portfolios

However, bear in mind that beyond the level of risk you want to take on, you have no say in the investments that your money gets funneled into. 

[samsg]

oh.. so IG doesn't provide any option for me to choose the funds / ETFs of my own selection to be invested in regular ISA/SIPP account?

E.g. if I have, let say £15,000 cash in ISA which I invest in some shares.. but also contribute £500 every month to the same ISA account.. and I want those £500 to be invested in 5 different funds of my choice.. to make use of cost averaging in investment.

Does IG not provide this option at all except what's available in Smart ISA portfolio which I don't want as I have not much control on what to invest in which specific funds and in which proportion. Also I don't want to maintain two different styles of ISA.

It's bit surprising as I was looking to move away from Interactive Investors and Hargreaves Lansdown platform.. both of which provides regular investing option and I thought IG is quite comparable to their services.

 

[Fletch]

8 hours ago, samsg said:

oh.. so IG doesn't provide any option for me to choose the funds / ETFs of my own selection to be invested in regular ISA/SIPP account?

E.g. if I have, let say £15,000 cash in ISA which I invest in some shares.. but also contribute £500 every month to the same ISA account.. and I want those £500 to be invested in 5 different funds of my choice.. to make use of cost averaging in investment.

Does IG not provide this option at all except what's available in Smart ISA portfolio which I don't want as I have not much control on what to invest in which specific funds and in which proportion. Also I don't want to maintain two different styles of ISA.

It's bit surprising as I was looking to move away from Interactive Investors and Hargreaves Lansdown platform.. both of which provides regular investing option and I thought IG is quite comparable to their services.

 

I do not have an IG Smart portfolio so I cannot say for certain, but my interpretation on how they work is that you decide on an overall risk profile and then pay into them - the actual investments are chosen by the manager of the scheme and not by you. It's a bone of contention amongst many people, but IG doesn't have much in the way of automatically investing in stocks of your own choice other than manually trading them yourself (which of course will be subject to the normal dealing charges).

[Fletch]

Fundamentally, I think the main focus of IG is on the provision of CFD/Spreadbetting accounts, because that is where they make the most money. Share trading is a bit of a poor second cousin, and the options available probably reflect that. However, short of the 'free' companies, IG's charges for share trading are about the lowest out there. I do something similar to what you want to do, though obviously every month I have to make the investments myself rather than have it happen automatically. It's not a big deal for me, and I prefer to do it with IG rather than pay for the privilige of an 'automatic' option with someone like HL.

Edited July 12, 2020 by Fletch
tautology

[samsg]

5 hours ago, Fletch said:

Fundamentally, I think the main focus of IG is on the provision of CFD/Spreadbetting accounts, because that is where they make the most money. Share trading is a bit of a poor second cousin, and the options available probably reflect that. However, short of the 'free' companies, IG's charges for share trading are about the lowest out there. I do something similar to what you want to do, though obviously every month I have to make the investments myself rather than have it happen automatically. It's not a big deal for me, and I prefer to do it with IG rather than pay for the privilige of an 'automatic' option with someone like HL.

  

5 hours ago, Fletch said:

Fundamentally, I think the main focus of IG is on the provision of CFD/Spreadbetting accounts, because that is where they make the most money. Share trading is a bit of a poor second cousin, and the options available probably reflect that. However, short of the 'free' companies, IG's charges for share trading are about the lowest out there. I do something similar to what you want to do, though obviously every month I have to make the investments myself rather than have it happen automatically. It's not a big deal for me, and I prefer to do it with IG rather than pay for the privilige of an 'automatic' option with someone like HL.

Thanks for your response. So regular monthly investments is not a concept in IG. Interactive Investor does it for free and HL charges £1.50 instead of full fee.

Does IG allow sale purchase of Funds / trusts as well? I can see it only lists  ETFs on their website with no mention to funds or trusts. Each platform charges a different entry and exit fees on such funds which are discounted to 0% by other platforms like HL and ii.

So before switching from HL to IG, I don't want to get into another massive charges being taken indirectly via funds (except usual Total Expense ratio which are same irrespective of platform used).

Not sure if you can see below funds are available to purchase in IG trading account as don't think any demo trading account is available which I can open myself and check.

"Legal & General Global Technology Trust --.. any class"

"Lindsell Train Global Equity fund - .. any class"

 

Thanks

[Fletch]

There are a limited selection of ETFs/Investment trusts, though not all are available for putting in an ISA due to tax rules, and I think there are some that IG will only allow 'professional' clients to trade (apparently too complex for us mere mortals). There is a screening tool that shows the availability of ETFs on IG

https://etfscreener.ig.com

But yes, my feeling is that IG concentrates on its CFD/SB service, and to be fair that is what it is known for. It offers share trading (possibly as a means of attracting further clients into CFD/SB trading), but I think you'll find the level of share trading options and service do not  rival more dedicated providers such as HL. Ultimately, you pays your money and you takes your choice...

[dmedin]

How much effort does it require for you to log in once a month and buy some shares?

Put a monetary value on that, and then shop around for a broker that gives you that value.

[samsg]

It seems IG doesn't have list of funds / trusts to regularly invest in so that puts me off from from moving my investments into this platform 😒 even though it is cost effective platform as compared to most. Hope it would expand beyond Shares and ETFs in future.