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AJ Bell Youinvest Review

as of 09/11/2020 at 1:37 pm

Holly's View

Clear and easy to use. The secure site has been gradually improving over the last 12 months as has the app, which is easy to navigate. Simple things such as using colour to help navigate different tax wrappers make a difference. The supporting research and market information is strong.

Our Rating

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We score each provider on about 20 different criteria including cost, service, website, functionality, customer feedback and our experience of the service. All overseen by our PhD gonk!

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Recommended For

Beginner Investor

Confident Investor

In a nutshell

Low cost

Strong on pensions

Good research and content

Visit AJ Bell Youinvest

You Say

Your overall rating

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Don’t want to take our word for it? We ask existing customers and investors to rate their experience with the company – based on value for money, overall service and the website. We need at least 20 customer reviews before we add anyone to our Best Buys list.

Based on 201 reviews

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We love customer reviews because it’s the only way we can check the user experience across a meaningful sample of independent people. We collect all of your reviews and use them to calculate the overall “You Say” score for each provider. We also use this customer rating in our analysis, to make sure we’re not rewarding companies which look good online but fail to deliver in practice. Finally we use the aggregated data in our research and consultancy with providers, so we can tell them what customers love or hate and help them to improve.

Your Reviews

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What to Expect

  1. Best Buy 2020
  2. Ease of use
  3. Mobile & Apps
  4. Behind the scenes
  5. Customer opinion

Best for ISA and Best for Pensions
AJ Bell Youinvest are strong on charges, are a decent all-rounder, however their customer feedback not as strong.

Best for Beginner 
They have decent costs for smaller accounts in their passive multi-assets funds, but their guidance is not quite as intuitive as others.

It’s a traditional site and relatively easy to navigate, although the lack of signposting isn’t helpful for newbies. There is plenty of information available with consumer-friendly language and research, but it could be more visually appealing. Tools, like the slider that compares product costs, are useful in visualising platform fees. Behind the scenes trading is simple and it’s clear to navigate around.

AJ Bell’s mobile app is available on both Android and iOS devices. Through the app users can sign up, research, and purchase investments, as well as just simply add money to your account. 
 
On iOS devices the app can be linked to the control center and there’s the option of two-factor authentication if security is your thing. Overall the app is very clean and easy to use despite looking rather boring! 

The secure site has been much improved. It’s clear to navigate around and it’s one of the easiest platforms for trading.

Post trade things are played back simply which might seem obvious but many others could learn a lesson from this!

This word cloud has been created from customer reviews of AJ Bell Youinvest.

Pink is positive and grey is negative.

The size of the word indicates the frequency of mentions.

Investment Choice

Products

Stocks and Shares ISA

Junior ISA

Lifetime ISA

Shares

Pension

Investments available

Own brand funds

Funds from other groups

Stocks and shares

Investment help

Robo advice / ready-made portfolios

Help building a portfolio

Includes a shortlist of investments

Pick your own funds

Pick your own shares

The 'Geeky' Details

Provider details

AJ Bell Youinvest is a low-cost option for people who are comfortable with investing. There are loads of investment options – including individual shares and funds. It does also have a range of low-cost all-in-one passive funds for those who want someone else to do the heavy lifting. 
 
Charges start off at 0.25% for the platform, excluding any fund charges. This tiers down for large portfolios and there’s a cap on shares. This tends to make them pretty cheap, whether you have a small or large portfolio containing shares or funds. There are fund and share dealing charges, £1.50 and £9.95 respectively, so there are cheaper options available for those that regularly invest small amounts into multiple funds. 

Important Facts & Figures

Provider Size:

Large firm which is listed on the LSE and FTSE 250. Manages over £12b on behalf of investors and financial advisers.
Minimum amounts: £25 minimum monthly amount
£500 minimum initial amount for third party funds. £1 minimum investment into AJ Bell passive funds.

Your Questions

"Good day, If I were to invest with A J Bell or Hargreaves Lansdown in a self select Stocks & Shares ISA and they were to 'go bust', what would happen to my investment? Thanks."

David, County Down

28/07/2020

Read our reply

Your question

Good day, If I were to invest with A J Bell or Hargreaves Lansdown in a self select Stocks & Shares ISA and they were to 'go bust', what would happen to my investment? Thanks.

David, County Down

28/07/2020

Holly Mackay says

Hi David,

All platforms will appoint what we call a custodian. One of the jobs of this custodian is to effectively ring fence client money and client investments, so that if the platform business itself goes bust, the client money remains protected and intact.

AJ Bell and Hargreaves Lansdown look after about £50 billion and £100 billion of clients' investments respectively, and I think you're on very certain ground with either of these two options.

This is a very well regulated industry and the custodians role means that you should not need to worry about the impact of these firms potentially going bust.

Hope this helps,

Holly

 

Just be aware...

We are not regulated to give personal financial advice - This isn’t full-fat regulated financial advice. Boring Money is a publisher and not regulated by the FCA. 

This means we can't help with specific personal circumstances or recommend specific investment products. It also basically means that if we say something daft, you have no recourse to come back and complain.

We’re only allowed to give you a steer or share an opinion or tell you the facts - That said, we promise that our answer to you is an independent unbiased perspective with no commercial gain to make. If you need regulated financial advice, you can find a good adviser via sites such as Unbiased & Vouchedfor.

"Hi, I'm trying to choose an 80/20 low cost tracker fund to transfer my pension to, as I'm currently paying 1% fees to my provider which I want to save on. Does the performance of different tracker funds vary a lot (e.g. between PensionBee, Nutmeg, AJ Bell) and how do I compare their track records? Many thanks, Vivienne"

Vivienne, London

22/07/2020

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Your question

Hi, I'm trying to choose an 80/20 low cost tracker fund to transfer my pension to, as I'm currently paying 1% fees to my provider which I want to save on. Does the performance of different tracker funds vary a lot (e.g. between PensionBee, Nutmeg, AJ Bell) and how do I compare their track records? Many thanks, Vivienne

Vivienne, London

22/07/2020

Holly Mackay says

Hi Vivienne,

 

Thanks for your question. The short answer to your first question about PensionBee, Nutmeg, & AJ Bell Youinvest - is yes, the performance between the various investment solutions you name does vary quite a lot.

In theory the very definition of a tracker fund is that it mirrors an index. So for retail investors, anything tracking the FTSE 100 for example will basically return you the same. That's the theory.

In reality, the sorts of options you mention will typically offer about five choices, which will differ in volatility and the percentage of shares in the portfolios. However, one provider's most volatile portfolio might have 95% of shares in it for example, while another provider's might have 80%. So it can be very difficult to compare like with like.

The other thing is that even if you compare two investment portfolios which both have 80% in shares, the underlying geographies will probably be different. We've seen examples over the last few years where groups have taken very different positions on US equities and have consequently had very different results.

These sorts of ready made investment options are relatively new in the market and very few have meaningful track records yet. A track record of less than a year is monkey and a dart board kind of stuff. I think you really need to see a track record of five years to evidence skill over luck, and none of these guys really have these long track records.

So, the long answer is that it is very hard to make a decision about these providers on an informed and reliable performance basis.

I would use our Compare pages to help you identify two or three you like the look of, and then visit their sites to see what the precise make up of their 80/20 portfolios is - and go from there.

Additionally, this article which was run in June's Telegraph may be helpful to you.

 

Good luck and I'm sorry I don't have a more concrete answer!

Holly

 

Just be aware...

We are not regulated to give personal financial advice - This isn’t full-fat regulated financial advice. Boring Money is a publisher and not regulated by the FCA. 

This means we can't help with specific personal circumstances or recommend specific investment products. It also basically means that if we say something daft, you have no recourse to come back and complain.

We’re only allowed to give you a steer or share an opinion or tell you the facts - That said, we promise that our answer to you is an independent unbiased perspective with no commercial gain to make. If you need regulated financial advice, you can find a good adviser via sites such as Unbiased & Vouchedfor.

"I'm a newbie investor looking for a SIPP. I see AJ Bell have low fees compared to Hargreaves Lansdown. Is it worth the lower fees even though there are exit charges, or pay the higher Hargreaves Lansdown charges, but have no exit fees?"

Andy, Hampshire

20/04/2020

Read our reply

Your question

I'm a newbie investor looking for a SIPP. I see AJ Bell have low fees compared to Hargreaves Lansdown. Is it worth the lower fees even though there are exit charges, or pay the higher Hargreaves Lansdown charges, but have no exit fees?

Andy, Hampshire

20/04/2020

Holly Mackay says

Both options you mention have very good service and are decent propositions. The AJ Bell Youinvest fees are indeed lower cost from an ongoing administration perspective.

You don’t say if you are in saving-up mode with your pension, or are close to ‘drawing down’ money out of it. AJ Bell Youinvest does have a menu of costs for those in drawdown mode whereas Hargreaves Lansdown's fee is more inclusive so it’s worth considering that too if you are close to retirement.

As for exit fees...

AJ Bell Youinvest is really quite unusual these days in having them.

I hate them, BUT you can make the argument that moving stuff out of an account costs money and why should everyone else subsidise those who do this?

This argument gets thinner and thinner the more that tech brings costs down. My gut feel is that if you chose AJ Bell Youinvest you would be broadly happy there, and I trust the integrity of the management team not to change direction/stuff things up/ become greedy.

So the exit fees question could be a moot point.

Broadly speaking I don’t think you’ll go far wrong with either. The larger your account, the more material the cost difference between the two options will be.

 

Hope that helps,

Holly

 

 

Just be aware...

We are not regulated to give personal financial advice - This isn’t full-fat regulated financial advice. Boring Money is a publisher and not regulated by the FCA. 

This means we can't help with specific personal circumstances or recommend specific investment products. It also basically means that if we say something daft, you have no recourse to come back and complain.

We’re only allowed to give you a steer or share an opinion or tell you the facts - That said, we promise that our answer to you is an independent unbiased perspective with no commercial gain to make. If you need regulated financial advice, you can find a good adviser via sites such as Unbiased & Vouchedfor.

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