Charges

[mao44]

I began investing in the HSBC FTSE All share tracker ISA in 2002 mainly due to it's relatively low TER which at the time was 0.27%. Around 2012 the TER was reduced to 0.17% as I kept the investment in the Legacy Share Class rather than moving it to the Clean Share Class under the RDR review. However, around 2016 or 2017 my investment was moved to the Clean Share Class by HSBC as the option of keeping it in the Legacy Class was closed. This led to the TER being increased to 0.34% thus doubling the charges. While obviously not satisfactory I decided to stay put as the charges were still not too bad. However, I discovered yesterday that the TER is now 0.52% made up of an account fee of 0.25% and a product costs fee of 0.27% which I was very concerned with as at no time do I recall receiving correspondence notifying me of this and feel this is exorbitant for an index tracker. My question being is there must be something more competitive on the market. I have looked at Vanguard All Share Tracker which I have found has an account fee of 0.22% but have not been able to find if there is an additional product cost fee. Can someone possibly shed some light on this?

[Alaric]

I have looked at Vanguard All Share Tracker which I have found has an account fee of 0.22% but have not been able to find if there is an additional product cost fee.

Isn't that variable as to who you invest with? Some platforms/Brokers treat OEICs the same as shares and charge dealing commission, but no custody fee. Others allow no-charge dealing but charge a platform/custody fee.

[TedSwippet]

I have looked at Vanguard All Share Tracker which I have found has an account fee of 0.22% but have not been able to find if there is an additional product cost fee. Can someone possibly shed some light on this?

As mentioned already by Alaric, your problem here is probably a combination of 'platform' charges and being in the wrong class of fund. Everything moved around with the RDR, and one major side-effect was that platforms started charging purely for access to funds, whereas before they were surviving on (healthy!) backhanders from the fund managers.

Vanguard have some good funds, but there is nothing wrong with HSBC ones either, provided you hold the right one. For example:

https://www.markets.iweb-sharedealing.c ... 00B80QFW04
https://www.markets.iweb-sharedealing.c ... 00B80QFX11

OCF of 0.07% or less. Choice of iWeb as the site to visit above was not random. They charge £25 as a one-off to open an account, £5 to trade, but then nothing at all in annual platform fees. This makes them ideal for long term buy-and-hold. For a more active fund trader, their alter-ego of Lloyds Sharedealing Direct costs a flat £40/year but charges just £1.50 for fund trades.

You don't say how much you hold in this fund, how often you trade, and so on, but these all have an impact on which platform will be the best one for you. These sites should help with that:

http://www.comparefundplatforms.com/
https://monevator.com/find-the-best-online-broker/

[BirlingB]

I began investing in the HSBC FTSE All share tracker ISA in 2002 mainly due to it's relatively low TER which at the time was 0.27%.

Is the tracker you refer to the HSBC FTSE All Share Index Fund GB00B80QFX11? Reason I ask because I have been looking at various trackers and this was one of them but the on-going charge is only 0.07% with Iweb, currently priced at £5.95. The Vanguard one GB00B3X7QG63 is 0.08 but currently at £202? As a newcomer to buying funds I find the fees and charges a bit confusing because as pointed out by Alaric

Isn't that variable as to who you invest with? Some platforms/Brokers treat OEICs the same as shares and charge dealing commission, but no custody fee. Others allow no-charge dealing but charge a platform/custody fee.

[TedSwippet]

Reason I ask because I have been looking at various trackers and this was one of them but the on-going charge is only 0.07% with Iweb, currently priced at £5.95. The Vanguard one GB00B3X7QG63 is 0.08 but currently at £202?

The price of a fund isn't really relevant to you as an investor. It's just a way of keeping score and handling trades. If you buy £1,000 of the HSBC fund you will own 168.0672 units, and if £1,000 of the Vanguard one you will own 4.9505 units. Either way though, you own £1,000 worth of UK stocks. And if those stocks rise 10% to leave the HSBC fund price at £6.55 and the Vanguard one at £222.20 and you then sell, you will receive £1,100 back either way.

No need to pay any attention to the absolute price of a fund or ETF, then. Only its change over the period that you hold it matters to you as an investor.

[JohnB]

While you can buy fractions of funds, it can be a nuisance for the often cheaper to hold ETFs that you can only buy integral units, and at £200 each, investment can be very lumpy.

[mao44]

I have looked at Vanguard All Share Tracker which I have found has an account fee of 0.22% but have not been able to find if there is an additional product cost fee. Can someone possibly shed some light on this?

As mentioned already by Alaric, your problem here is probably a combination of 'platform' charges and being in the wrong class of fund. Everything moved around with the RDR, and one major side-effect was that platforms started charging purely for access to funds, whereas before they were surviving on (healthy!) backhanders from the fund managers.

Vanguard have some good funds, but there is nothing wrong with HSBC ones either, provided you hold the right one. For example:

https://www.markets.iweb-sharedealing.c ... 00B80QFW04
https://www.markets.iweb-sharedealing.c ... 00B80QFX11

OCF of 0.07% or less. Choice of iWeb as the site to visit above was not random. They charge £25 as a one-off to open an account, £5 to trade, but then nothing at all in annual platform fees. This makes them ideal for long term buy-and-hold. For a more active fund trader, their alter-ego of Lloyds Sharedealing Direct costs a flat £40/year but charges just £1.50 for fund trades.

You don't say how much you hold in this fund, how often you trade, and so on, but these all have an impact on which platform will be the best one for you. These sites should help with that:

http://www.comparefundplatforms.com/
https://monevator.com/find-the-best-online-broker/

Thanks Ted. I hold a high 5 figure sum and drip feed in £250 a month by ddm so I am buying units on a monthly basis and reinvest the divis twice half yearly. There is no account fee in the links above but as you say the OCF is 0.07 but there is a transaction fee of 0.50% which would make the annual TER 0.57% which is higher than I am currently being charged by HSBC or please correct me if I am mistaken?

[Alaric]

there is a transaction fee of 0.50%

What's that charged against? If it's against the amounts being invested, that's separate from the OCF.

250*12*0.005 = £ 15 a year

[mao44]

there is a transaction fee of 0.50%

What's that charged against? If it's against the amounts being invested, that's separate from the OCF.

250*12*0.005 = £ 15 a year

Thanks Alaric. Got my sums wrong. It appears that Vanguard is the best cost wise with a TER of 0.30% which beats the HSBC TER of 0.52% hands down. I have emailed Vanguard asking them if this is correct.

[TedSwippet]

I hold a high 5 figure sum and drip feed in £250 a month by ddm so I am buying units on a monthly basis and reinvest the divis twice half yearly. There is no account fee in the links above but as you say the OCF is 0.07 but there is a transaction fee of 0.50% which would make the annual TER 0.57% which is higher than I am currently being charged by HSBC or please correct me if I am mistaken?

At £250/trade, iWeb's £5 trading charge is 2% of the sum being invested. That's beyond what I would pay, but you could easily cut that to 0.66% by buying £1,000 every quarter, but with no discernible difference in long-term outcome. Or for Lloyds Sharedealing Direct, £1.50 is 0.6% of £250, so not horrible (and it's 0.2% of £750).

Remember that these trading charges are one-off and only on the £250 or whatever that you pay in, and so they are entirely unlike the 0.25% or whatever annual fee on everything that you might currently be paying. You appear to be conflating one-off trading charges on small purchases with recurring annual charges on the entire balance.

As for the 0.5% transaction fee, if you read iWeb's document closely you will see that this is "based on industry average". In other words, a guess by iWeb in order to meet some fee disclosure regulation or similar. In practice, you don't pay this. It is 0% when you come to actually place the fund trade with them. So literally £5 (or £1.50) to buy and sell, and 0.07% or less in annual fee paid to HSBC, and that's it. Nothing more. I hold these HSBC funds in both my pension and my ISA, and they work exactly as advertised.

In short, you do not pay 0.57% annually on the HSBC fund, nor do you pay 0.5% in transaction fees with iWeb. :-)

It appears that Vanguard is the best cost wise with a TER of 0.30% which beats the HSBC TER of 0.52% hands down. I have emailed Vanguard asking them if this is correct.

Vanguard's UK all share fund has a 0.08% TER, compared to HSBC's 0.07%. Very little in it there, then. If you hold this Vanguard fund at Vanguard directly, you will pay them 0.15% of everything as a platform fee, capped at £375/year, plus the fund TER. Say your 'high 5 figure sum' is £75,000. You would pay £112/year for the platform, nothing in trading costs, and £60/year for the fund TER, so £172/year. You can only hold Vanguard's own funds and ETFs on Vanguard's UK direct-to-customer platform.

If you hold this Vanguard fund at iWeb and trade monthly, you pay nothing for the platform, £60 in trading costs, and £60/year for the fund TER, totalling £120. Or you could hold the HSBC equivalent at iWeb and cut your fund TER cost to £52.50, for a total £112.50. A win over holding things on Vanguard's retail platform either way.

If you use Lloyds you shave costs even further based on your current trading pattern, £40 for the platform, £18 in trading costs, and the same fund TERs as with iWeb, so £118/year all-in for the Vanguard fund and £110.50/year all-in for HSBC.

[mao44]

I hold a high 5 figure sum and drip feed in £250 a month by ddm so I am buying units on a monthly basis and reinvest the divis twice half yearly. There is no account fee in the links above but as you say the OCF is 0.07 but there is a transaction fee of 0.50% which would make the annual TER 0.57% which is higher than I am currently being charged by HSBC or please correct me if I am mistaken?

At £250/trade, iWeb's £5 trading charge is 2% of the sum being invested. That's beyond what I would pay, but you could easily cut that to 0.66% by buying £1,000 every quarter, but with no discernible difference in long-term outcome. Or for Lloyds Sharedealing Direct, £1.50 is 0.6% of £250, so not horrible (and it's 0.2% of £750).

Remember that these trading charges are one-off and only on the £250 or whatever that you pay in, and so they are entirely unlike the 0.25% or whatever annual fee on everything that you might currently be paying. You appear to be conflating one-off trading charges on small purchases with recurring annual charges on the entire balance.

As for the 0.5% transaction fee, if you read iWeb's document closely you will see that this is "based on industry average". In other words, a guess by iWeb in order to meet some fee disclosure regulation or similar. In practice, you don't pay this. It is 0% when you come to actually place the fund trade with them. So literally £5 (or £1.50) to buy and sell, and 0.07% or less in annual fee paid to HSBC, and that's it. Nothing more. I hold these HSBC funds in both my pension and my ISA, and they work exactly as advertised.

In short, you do not pay 0.57% annually on the HSBC fund, nor do you pay 0.5% in transaction fees with iWeb.

It appears that Vanguard is the best cost wise with a TER of 0.30% which beats the HSBC TER of 0.52% hands down. I have emailed Vanguard asking them if this is correct.

Vanguard's UK all share fund has a 0.08% TER, compared to HSBC's 0.07%. Very little in it there, then. If you hold this Vanguard fund at Vanguard directly, you will pay them 0.15% of everything as a platform fee, capped at £375/year, plus the fund TER. Say your 'high 5 figure sum' is £75,000. You would pay £112/year for the platform, nothing in trading costs, and £60/year for the fund TER, so £172/year. You can only hold Vanguard's own funds and ETFs on Vanguard's UK direct-to-customer platform.

If you hold this Vanguard fund at iWeb and trade monthly, you pay nothing for the platform, £60 in trading costs, and £60/year for the fund TER, totalling £120. Or you could hold the HSBC equivalent at iWeb and cut your fund TER cost to £52.50, for a total £112.50. A win over holding things on Vanguard's retail platform either way.

If you use Lloyds you shave costs even further based on your current trading pattern, £40 for the platform, £18 in trading costs, and the same fund TERs as with iWeb, so £118/year all-in for the Vanguard fund and £110.50/year all-in for HSBC.

Thank you for your detailed explanation. It appears that holding the HSBC equivalent through iweb is is far less than I am currently being charged. Why do you think this is? In the Costs and Charges statement that I have just received for 2018/2019 from HSBC, service costs are 0.25% at £156.36 and product costs 0.27% at &169.00 making a total cost of 0.52% at £325.36!!

[TedSwippet]

Thank you for your detailed explanation. It appears that holding the HSBC equivalent through iweb is is far less than I am currently being charged. Why do you think this is? In the Costs and Charges statement that I have just received for 2018/2019 from HSBC, service costs are 0.25% at £156.36 and product costs 0.27% at &169.00 making a total cost of 0.52% at £325.36!!

Two reasons. Firstly, HSBC charges an annual 0.25% platform fee. It's not the highest one in existence -- that dubious honour goes to Hargreaves Lansdown's outrageous 0.45% -- but nor is it the lowest, for example Vanguard at 0.15% or iWeb at 0% but with a moderate trading fee.

Personally I have an ideological dislike of percentage based platform fees, since the platform charge to hold £1mm in funds may be slightly higher than to hold £1k, insurance coverage perhaps, but it is surely not 1000x as much! I use only flat-fee platforms, so Interactive Investor, Alliance Trust Savings, Halifax Sharedealing (and their iWeb and Lloyds surrogates), and so on. For really small balances, less than one to two years' ISA allowance, a percentage based fee is usually cheaper than flat fee, but beyond that the flat fee platforms begin to win out. At pension levels, in a SIPP near the lifetime allowance say, the platform savings alone from a flat fee platform can be multiple thousands of pounds per year.

Secondly, for whatever reason, it seems that you still hold the old 'retail' class of HSBC's UK all share tracker fund, with a 0.27% TER. Switch your holding to the class C shares and you will instantly save 0.2% of your charges but with the exact same underlying holdings. Only HSBC can tell you why they did not switch you over to this class of share on their platform as part of the RDR. All of my own platforms (iWeb, Interactive Investor, Alliance Trust Savings) did this automatically for me some years ago as part of their RDR compliance. At least with this in an ISA, if you cannot get HSBC to switch classes for you seamlessly, you can sell retail and buy class C relatively quickly for yourself and with no need to tangle with capital gains tax.

Beyond moving to class C shares, I'd consider transferring your ISA to a cheaper platform. Unless you hold something exotic on HSBC's platform, you should be able to move everything 'in specie' -- that is, as holdings rather than as cash. It won't happen quickly, but it doesn't leave you out of the markets for any period at all, so it's risk-free. That's my preferred method of moving platform, something I've done probably half a dozen times with assorted ISAs, SIPPs and so on since the RDR a few years ago. It's straightforward. Fill out one simple transfer form, and the platform you want to move to will take care of all the details for you.

Of course, you can always use Vanguard funds instead, if that floats your boat. I hold those as well as HSBC in my iWeb account, and they're also fine. Index tracking funds are by-and-large 'commodity items' these days.

[JohnB]

Note that ETFs can have very different charges to funds. For the Hargreaves Landsown, who's 0.45% fund charge is painful, I hold unsheltered ETFs for free, and SIPP ETFs for a fee capped at £200 a year. Monevator.com and Langcat (https://www.langcatfinancial.co.uk/isa-guide-2019/) keep guides up to date on who's charging what fees this week.

[mao44]

Thank you for your detailed explanation. It appears that holding the HSBC equivalent through iweb is is far less than I am currently being charged. Why do you think this is? In the Costs and Charges statement that I have just received for 2018/2019 from HSBC, service costs are 0.25% at £156.36 and product costs 0.27% at &169.00 making a total cost of 0.52% at £325.36!!

Two reasons. Firstly, HSBC charges an annual 0.25% platform fee. It's not the highest one in existence -- that dubious honour goes to Hargreaves Lansdown's outrageous 0.45% -- but nor is it the lowest, for example Vanguard at 0.15% or iWeb at 0% but with a moderate trading fee.

Personally I have an ideological dislike of percentage based platform fees, since the platform charge to hold £1mm in funds may be slightly higher than to hold £1k, insurance coverage perhaps, but it is surely not 1000x as much! I use only flat-fee platforms, so Interactive Investor, Alliance Trust Savings, Halifax Sharedealing (and their iWeb and Lloyds surrogates), and so on. For really small balances, less than one to two years' ISA allowance, a percentage based fee is usually cheaper than flat fee, but beyond that the flat fee platforms begin to win out. At pension levels, in a SIPP near the lifetime allowance say, the platform savings alone from a flat fee platform can be multiple thousands of pounds per year.

Secondly, for whatever reason, it seems that you still hold the old 'retail' class of HSBC's UK all share tracker fund, with a 0.27% TER. Switch your holding to the class C shares and you will instantly save 0.2% of your charges but with the exact same underlying holdings. Only HSBC can tell you why they did not switch you over to this class of share on their platform as part of the RDR. All of my own platforms (iWeb, Interactive Investor, Alliance Trust Savings) did this automatically for me some years ago as part of their RDR compliance. At least with this in an ISA, if you cannot get HSBC to switch classes for you seamlessly, you can sell retail and buy class C relatively quickly for yourself and with no need to tangle with capital gains tax.

Beyond moving to class C shares, I'd consider transferring your ISA to a cheaper platform. Unless you hold something exotic on HSBC's platform, you should be able to move everything 'in specie' -- that is, as holdings rather than as cash. It won't happen quickly, but it doesn't leave you out of the markets for any period at all, so it's risk-free. That's my preferred method of moving platform, something I've done probably half a dozen times with assorted ISAs, SIPPs and so on since the RDR a few years ago. It's straightforward. Fill out one simple transfer form, and the platform you want to move to will take care of all the details for you.

Of course, you can always use Vanguard funds instead, if that floats your boat. I hold those as well as HSBC in my iWeb account, and they're also fine. Index tracking funds are by-and-large 'commodity items' these days.

Great, thanks Ted. You have been really helpful.

[mao44]

Thank you for your detailed explanation. It appears that holding the HSBC equivalent through iweb is is far less than I am currently being charged. Why do you think this is? In the Costs and Charges statement that I have just received for 2018/2019 from HSBC, service costs are 0.25% at £156.36 and product costs 0.27% at &169.00 making a total cost of 0.52% at £325.36!!

Two reasons. Firstly, HSBC charges an annual 0.25% platform fee. It's not the highest one in existence -- that dubious honour goes to Hargreaves Lansdown's outrageous 0.45% -- but nor is it the lowest, for example Vanguard at 0.15% or iWeb at 0% but with a moderate trading fee.

Personally I have an ideological dislike of percentage based platform fees, since the platform charge to hold £1mm in funds may be slightly higher than to hold £1k, insurance coverage perhaps, but it is surely not 1000x as much! I use only flat-fee platforms, so Interactive Investor, Alliance Trust Savings, Halifax Sharedealing (and their iWeb and Lloyds surrogates), and so on. For really small balances, less than one to two years' ISA allowance, a percentage based fee is usually cheaper than flat fee, but beyond that the flat fee platforms begin to win out. At pension levels, in a SIPP near the lifetime allowance say, the platform savings alone from a flat fee platform can be multiple thousands of pounds per year.

Secondly, for whatever reason, it seems that you still hold the old 'retail' class of HSBC's UK all share tracker fund, with a 0.27% TER. Switch your holding to the class C shares and you will instantly save 0.2% of your charges but with the exact same underlying holdings. Only HSBC can tell you why they did not switch you over to this class of share on their platform as part of the RDR. All of my own platforms (iWeb, Interactive Investor, Alliance Trust Savings) did this automatically for me some years ago as part of their RDR compliance. At least with this in an ISA, if you cannot get HSBC to switch classes for you seamlessly, you can sell retail and buy class C relatively quickly for yourself and with no need to tangle with capital gains tax.

Beyond moving to class C shares, I'd consider transferring your ISA to a cheaper platform. Unless you hold something exotic on HSBC's platform, you should be able to move everything 'in specie' -- that is, as holdings rather than as cash. It won't happen quickly, but it doesn't leave you out of the markets for any period at all, so it's risk-free. That's my preferred method of moving platform, something I've done probably half a dozen times with assorted ISAs, SIPPs and so on since the RDR a few years ago. It's straightforward. Fill out one simple transfer form, and the platform you want to move to will take care of all the details for you.

Of course, you can always use Vanguard funds instead, if that floats your boat. I hold those as well as HSBC in my iWeb account, and they're also fine. Index tracking funds are by-and-large 'commodity items' these days.

I have just checked and I was moved to the C class of HSBC's UK all share tracker fund In September 2017 as the option to remain in retail class was removed. After RDR in 2012 I was offered the choice of remaining in the legacy class (retail) or moving to Clean share (C) and opted to remain in Legacy as the overall TER was less at 0.27% and subsequently reduced to 0.17%. I am guessing after the move to C class in 2017 the charges increased to a TER of 0.52% although I cannot find anything in the literature showing this. I will ring them to find out. As a result of this I have decided to transfer over to Vanguard who have sent me some literature. The TER for their FTSE all share tracker 0.28% which is nearly half of the charges I am currently paying. Again thanks for your detailed response.

[TedSwippet]

I have just checked and I was moved to the C class of HSBC's UK all share tracker fund In September 2017 as the option to remain in retail class was removed. After RDR in 2012 I was offered the choice of remaining in the legacy class (retail) or moving to Clean share (C) and opted to remain in Legacy as the overall TER was less at 0.27% and subsequently reduced to 0.17%. I am guessing after the move to C class in 2017 the charges increased to a TER of 0.52% although I cannot find anything in the literature showing this. I will ring them to find out.

This all sounds very confused to me. As you can see from the links I posted earlier, the TER on the class C HSBC FTSE all-share tracker fund is clearly 0.07%, give or take. Hopefully HSBC can explain your charges, then. The TER (and for that matter, the OCF) are not the full story. Maybe HSBC are showing you their costs inclusive of some of the things that the TER and the OCF omit, for example this:

http://doc.morningstar.com/LatestDoc.as ... menttype=1

Even that doesn't reach 0.52% though. My suspicion is that you still hold the retail class, somehow. Can you post the ISINs of the fund(s) that you hold. You should be able to find these somewhere on your statements or online account, perhaps in the 'KID' or 'KIID' documents for the fund(s). They will be something like "UK" or perhaps "IE" followed directly by ten alphanumeric characters, for example "GB00B80QFX11" (this is the ISIN for HSBC FTSE All Share Index C Acc, Accumulation units). This should nail down exactly what you currently own.

As a result of this I have decided to transfer over to Vanguard who have sent me some literature. The TER for their FTSE all share tracker 0.28% which is nearly half of the charges I am currently paying. Again thanks for your detailed response.

Again, I'm mystified on where you get the 0.28% from. Vanguard's site shows that their FTSE all-share tracker fund has a 0.08% TER:

https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/inve ... ome-shares

Assuming you wish to hold this directly with Vanguard rather than through iWeb's 0% platform fee, adding Vanguard's 0.15% platform fee to this fund's TER still only gets you to 0.23%. Are you sure you are making apples-to-apples comparisons here?

[mao44]

I have just checked and I was moved to the C class of HSBC's UK all share tracker fund In September 2017 as the option to remain in retail class was removed. After RDR in 2012 I was offered the choice of remaining in the legacy class (retail) or moving to Clean share (C) and opted to remain in Legacy as the overall TER was less at 0.27% and subsequently reduced to 0.17%. I am guessing after the move to C class in 2017 the charges increased to a TER of 0.52% although I cannot find anything in the literature showing this. I will ring them to find out.

This all sounds very confused to me. As you can see from the links I posted earlier, the TER on the class C HSBC FTSE all-share tracker fund is clearly 0.07%, give or take. Hopefully HSBC can explain your charges, then. The TER (and for that matter, the OCF) are not the full story. Maybe HSBC are showing you their costs inclusive of some of the things that the TER and the OCF omit, for example this:

http://doc.morningstar.com/LatestDoc.as ... menttype=1

Even that doesn't reach 0.52% though. My suspicion is that you still hold the retail class, somehow. Can you post the ISINs of the fund(s) that you hold. You should be able to find these somewhere on your statements or online account, perhaps in the 'KID' or 'KIID' documents for the fund(s). They will be something like "UK" or perhaps "IE" followed directly by ten alphanumeric characters, for example "GB00B80QFX11" (this is the ISIN for HSBC FTSE All Share Index C Acc, Accumulation units). This should nail down exactly what you currently own.

As a result of this I have decided to transfer over to Vanguard who have sent me some literature. The TER for their FTSE all share tracker 0.28% which is nearly half of the charges I am currently paying. Again thanks for your detailed response.

Again, I'm mystified on where you get the 0.28% from. Vanguard's site shows that their FTSE all-share tracker fund has a 0.08% TER:

https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/inve ... ome-shares

Assuming you wish to hold this directly with Vanguard rather than through iWeb's 0% platform fee, adding Vanguard's 0.15% platform fee to this fund's TER still only gets you to 0.23%. Are you sure you are making apples-to-apples comparisons here?

No it's definitely the C Class. I spoke to HSBC earlier and they confirmed what I suspected. The costs doubled when I was moved to the C class in September 2017. The product cost was 0.27% at the time and then they introduced the service costs on top at 0.25% therefore making the total cost (TER) 0.52%. The ISIN was GB0000424886. I hold income units. The fact sheet that you mention does show the charges at 0.41% but there are obviously additional charges on top. GB00BPN5P782 Vanguard FTSE U.K. All Share Index Unit Trust - A GBP Income Units charges are as follows: OCF 0.08%, transaction costs 0.05%, account fee 0.15%, = total cost (TER) 0.28%

[TedSwippet]

The ISIN was GB0000424886. I hold income units.

Wait, "was?" Do you still hold this fund? If yes, it's definitely the more expensive 'retail' class:
https://markets.ft.com/data/funds/tears ... 424886:GBX

It's 'clean' class C equivalent is GB00B80QFW04:
https://markets.ft.com/data/funds/tears ... 0QFW04:GBX

Your costs doubled because HSBC added a 0.25% service fee, but you should have got at least some of that back from converting your holding to class C shares. You said in your first post that they moved you to the clean class, but that appears not to have occurred. Based on what you wrote above, anyway.

GB00BPN5P782 Vanguard FTSE U.K. All Share Index Unit Trust - A GBP Income Units charges are as follows: OCF 0.08%, transaction costs 0.05%, account fee 0.15%, = total cost (TER) 0.28%

Okay, I get this now. They are showing the costs including the bit that is usually hidden (the transaction costs part).

I assume you have taken on board that if you hold this fund in iWeb instead you could reduce this to 0.13%, as you then eliminate Vanguard's 0.15% account fee? You would however have to offset some of that reduction against iWeb's trading costs, given your current trading pattern. Vanguard does not charge anything for trades.

[mc2fool]

The fact sheet that you mention does show the charges at 0.41% but there are obviously additional charges on top.

The fact sheet Ted linked to shows OCF of 0.07% and transaction costs of 0.09%, for a total fund (product) cost of 0.16%, and an account fee of 0.25%, so, no, there shouldn't be any additional charges, that's it. The account fee can be lessened, worsened or avoided by using a different broker.

I note you say "I hold income units" and have also said you "reinvest the divis twice half yearly", so I wonder why you don't just hold the accumulation units instead to avoid the faff of reinvesting the dividends, and potentially avoid the cost of doing so if you move to a flat fee broker.

[mao44]

The ISIN was GB0000424886. I hold income units.

Wait, "was?" Do you still hold this fund? If yes, it's definitely the more expensive 'retail' class:
https://markets.ft.com/data/funds/tears ... 424886:GBX

It's 'clean' class C equivalent is GB00B80QFW04:
https://markets.ft.com/data/funds/tears ... 0QFW04:GBX

Your costs doubled because HSBC added a 0.25% service fee, but you should have got at least some of that back from converting your holding to class C shares. You said in your first post that they moved you to the clean class, but that appears not to have occurred. Based on what you wrote above, anyway.

GB00BPN5P782 Vanguard FTSE U.K. All Share Index Unit Trust - A GBP Income Units charges are as follows: OCF 0.08%, transaction costs 0.05%, account fee 0.15%, = total cost (TER) 0.28%

Okay, I get this now. They are showing the costs including the bit that is usually hidden (the transaction costs part).

I assume you have taken on board that if you hold this fund in iWeb instead you could reduce this to 0.13%, as you then eliminate Vanguard's 0.15% account fee? You would however have to offset some of that reduction against iWeb's trading costs, given your current trading pattern. Vanguard does not charge anything for trades.

Yes my bad. The ISIN is now GB00B80QFW04. I guess it is a toss up between iweb and Vanguard but leaning towards iweb with their zero platform fee.