I donāt think they do, this is a common theme in here, reddit or moneysavingexpert etc. even before fees there were posts like. āgive us [random feature] or youāll loose meā and everyone in their head is as important as Warren Buffet. That is why Iām saying take it easy
I have a problem with any percent fee, and my problem at this time is same as my initial post on fees:
I donāt believe this is the last fee, and I have 0% trust. This is not because they introduced a fee, itās because they so easily flip-flop without even acknowledging, they flip flopped. When you post several times chivalrously that there wonāt be any fees, and introduce a new fee and on that same post again say āhey guys there wonāt be any feesāā¦ then my apologies this naturally erodes trust.
I donāt even know why you are comparing taxes with fees. Yes paying those are also annoying but as the saying goes āthere are two things unavoidable in life: taxes and death.ā
FWIW there is no withholding tax in SIPPs, and yes I donāt own many UK stocks.
I think that both make true statements @Dao and @kali.
But at the end, I think each one of us know or at least has to know which costs are acceptable or manageable to our investment level, strategy and time horizon.
Is it questionable to advertise something and then change it? Surely it could be. But the market is dynamic and all businesses need to analyze and then take decisions too. Specially when you have global events as a pandemic, the gamestop and amc frantic, etc.
Everyone agree with the TOC and I think you can express your complaints but youāre not forced to stay with whoever your broker is if you donāt like the services they offer you. Itās not a rigid contract.
At the end, things will naturally flow to a steady state (you keep your clients or they go away) as is not a monopoly of T212.
So, there will always be satisfied clients and dissatisfied clients, the percentage of each one will depend of the broker market target, services vs competitors and so on.
Is there a way to do a poll, where people can add things they think are missing, and vote yay/nay against what is already there?
That at least would show the appetite for things.
Myself I am a long term investor, so the 0.15% added to any foreign trade doesnāt really concern me much. I can see it impacting anyone who like to day trade, as it effectively adds a 0.3% extra headwind that wasnāt there before. But then people need to consider anyone day trading, puts more stress on the platform in terms of trade volumes, and there are no added fees to trades.
We have to trust they have thought it through and adding a 0.15% spread onto an FX is reasonable for whatever reason they have implemented this.
212 I think announced late 2020 that the Invest service is now sizeable enough that it is profitable on its own as is, yet we are all asking for additional features. These will not come without a cost to someone.
If 212 can generate revenue from stock lending - perhaps long term āholdā type users should get the basic features of the platform for free.
Iām not sure if 212 can make revenue from Investment Trusts or ETFs, so I wouldnāt mind if they added say a 0.1% platform fee to this, capped at say Ā£30 or some arbitrary level so that investors that grow sizeable positions remain on the platform.
I would also think it fair, anyone that uses the platform to day trade, maybe there could be a monthly platform fee, and they operate on a separate server of sorts, where you are paying for āspeedā, without impacting the other users.
All this could be spent on improving the services on offer to all parties.
If at all possible, I would request:
In Specie transfers in/out - I dont like being out of the market, and its the one reason stopping me having a 212 ISA, or transferring my existing ISA to 212.
Auto Dividend Reinvestments at an account/stock level, and not just in Pies.
CSV trade data to segregate flows and cash movements at a pie level. This would make it easier to analyse strategy performance.
Unbalanced Pies - Ability to add cash and trade a specific stock, without having to fidget with pie ratios.
Regular standing instructions to top up without fees.
None are top priority really, just all nice to haves.
If the goal is to be the best broker in UK ok. But if the goal is to, at least, challenge the European market, there are many things more important to work on than LISA, ISA, and etc. limited to UK.
Before Covid, T212 was starting to be well placed in Europe, but now the competition is totally different, a lot of good brokers are getting stronger. If they donāt shift more focus on Europeans they will loose the advantage to their competitors.
@Francesco also just for clarification, T212 is not even close to being the best UK broker, it is just the cheapest. Barring pies/fractions T212 offers nothing at or better level than most other established brokers. In fact, the above future list is mostly complete with others.
Yes I know, I have few friends in UK that still prefer other brokers even if expensive over T212. But because I canāt directly judge the UK market and offers, I canāt express my self. While as European, Iāve tried and used different brokers and in the past year new ones are appearing and old ones are getting stronger, while T212 only released Social features (which I hate with all my self, reason why I always avoided eToro, never tried and never will), and focused the offering to the UK clientele, and as European customer I (and many other friends I know from different countries) felt like this isnāt the broker to bet on. As I said in another post, my decision is based on what they are offering now, if it will change one day Iāll be happy to move funds again in T212. But while (in my opinion of course) a year ago it was on the top 3 broker to bet in EU, now, sadly, itās not even in the top 5.
Iām mainly using Degiro, and I think is the best for me as Iām living in The Netherlands and planning to move to Italy soon. I have an Italian account so my commissions on stock picks are super low for the Italian e American markets, which are most important to me. I only use rarely the Euronext Amsterdam. For my PAC I have all the ETFs free, and the selection got batter recently.
For taxes in The Netherlands is easy because itās easy taxation anyway here, but it will be a plus when I move to Italy because the make a Pre-made document to add to your tax declaration (which in Italy is a nightmare compared to here).
And has everything I need for my type of investments with costs basically less than 50$ a year, probably even less now that Iām focusing on ETFs more than before.
Also with the merge of Flatex I think it will keep getting better, I already see some plus points.
Important to precise that Iām an Investor long term focused and not a trader, so I hardly sell and I donāt buy 2000 companies a month.
Iāve used degiro for a very long time, Iāve said quite a few times probably in this forum as well as emailing degiro: āif they had tax effective wrappers(isa/sipp), I would not use anything elseā
Yes it is not free, but it is very very cheap, charging miniscule amounts per transactions. Further more their charges have been like that for quite some time, they donāt arbitrarily pop up new fees.
As far as I know regulations for ISA, etc. are complicated, especially for companies that are not in UK and especially after Brexit. I doubt it will come soon, if I was personally in charge, being an European company getting stronger in EU I wouldnāt care much about a limited product (because at the end there are limits on how much you can invest through these accounts and if you invest more you need to use a normal taxed investing account) that is limited on a country with 60millions people while on the other side I have the EU with 450millions people, in an environment where Europe is slowly becoming a real Union and UK that left with all that will follow. All the expats and major international companies that where based in UK only for tax purpose, in order to easily access EU clients, already start leaving and they will continue as is no longer convenient for them.
Said this I donāt think UK will become a third world country but definitely a good part of money will move out of the country. Making niches products like those really low on priority.
Fees wise, they are so low that are basically none compared to other brokers/banks. the more they grew the more they reduced them, the new selection of ETFs for free makes it almost completely free for a lot of investor that only accumulate monthly investments for retirement. And the ETFs world always dominated by US is becoming strong in EU, and the merge of Amundi and Lyxor will be an interesting move to see what will bring.
