Any chance of 212 introducing the idea of buying UK guilts?
No risk, income generating, and helping government debt- what’s not to like?
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Only through ETFs, most probably couldn’t afford the minimum tradable lot sizes.
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Problem i find with ETF’s that i cant do a bond ladder on UK gilts and also am only interested in short dated bonds
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At the moment, bonds are not offered on our platform. However, as @Dougal1984 pointed out, you can get some exposure to bonds through ETFs.
We’ll let you know if anything changes in the future 
Would you be open to run a survey and see how many interest you might get? I don’t know if other brokers are offering - you might get a first mover advantage here - just saying 
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You want a money market / short term fund in that instance.
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Appreciate the interest, @Zrtz and the idea of having a survey. However, we’re actively monitoring all suggestions around, so it’s not necessary.
As for offering bonds - it is not in our immediate plans. I’ll let you know if anything changes, though.
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Hi guys further on this topic, would you mind adding Bulletshares and ibonds?
This is not even close to being the same thing.
There is a lot more certainty with a bond rather than an ETF.
Fixed income ETFs do not bring their holdings to maturity.
That’s incorrect. It is the ETF that does not mature. The underlying holdings can be held to maturity and reinvested.
There are a lot more complexities with bond instruments as well. Minimal lot sizes for example. Some bonds require trades of a minimum 100k which most of us on 212 won’t have the funds for. You can get the same albeit diluted exposure through ETFs.
Generally speaking bond ETFs are designed to track an index and to keep its duration constant.
As I said this is not even close to buying and holding individual bonds until maturity, let alone a bond ladder.
Just look at investopedia for a comprehensive list of issues with bond ETFs What Is a Bond ETF? Definition, Types, Examples, and How to Invest (investopedia.com)
Also I don’t know why you keep talking about minimum lot size when there are loads of retail bonds with a min size of 1k.
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Minimum lot sizes are important for portfolio construction / risk management. It depends how risk adverse you are to counterparty exposure. You can’t buy fractional bonds, bond liquidity is generally low close to maturity but you can gain exposure through an etf or mutual fund.
The returns of a fund that holds underlying bonds to maturity is not that different to a fund that does not. The reason ETFs generally don’t is liquidity risk.