AJ Bell : Youinvest reduces and simplifies charges for customers

AJ Bell Youinvest, one of the UK's leading investment platforms, is reducing and simplifying a number of its charges and increasing the interest rates paid on cash balances, making the platform even better value at a time when customers are facing rising living costs.

Charges being simplified and reduced from 1 July 2022

Funds custody charge

The bands for the annual platform charge on funds are being simplified and lowered as per the table below, meaning no platform charge will be levied on fund holdings above £500,000. This applies to SIPPs, Junior SIPPs, ISAs and Dealing accounts.

Existing charge	New charge
Value	Annual charge	Value	Annual charge
First £0 - £250,000	0.25%	First £0 - £250,000	0.25%
Next £250,000 - £1m	0.10%	Next £250,000 - £500,000	0.10%
Next £1m - £2m	0.05%	Value over £500,000	No charge
Value over £2m	No charge

Foreign exchange charges

The foreign exchange charges on international share dealing and foreign currency funds is being reduced as per the table below. As an example, for a £6,000 deal, the foreign exchange charge will reduce from £60 to £45.

Existing charge	New charge
Deal value	FX charge	Deal value	FX charge
First £10,000	1.00%	First £10,000	0.75%
Next £10,000	0.75%	Next £10,000	0.50%
Next £10,000	0.50%	£20,000 +	0.25%
£30,000 +	0.25%

Dividend reinvestment

The trading charge for automatic dividend reinvestment is being reduced to a flat fee of £1.50 (currently the charge is 1% of the value of the trade with a minimum of £1.50 and a maximum of £9.95.)

Transfer out charges

All of the following charges will be removed:

• £9.95 per line of stock for moving investments to another provider without selling them
• £295 for transferring a SIPP to another provider within one year of opening it
• £250 for transferring a SIPP to an overseas pension scheme (QROPS)

Interest rates on cash balances

The level of interest paid on cash balances is being increased for balances above £10,000 as per the table below.

Cash balance	SIPP/Junior SIPP Interest rate (AER) for this tier only	ISA*/Dealing account Interest rate (AER) for this tier only
Above £100,000	0.25%	0.15%
Above £50,000 - £100,000	0.15%	0.10%
Above £10,000 - £50,000	0.10%	0.05%
£10,000 and below	0.00%	0.00%

*Includes Stocks and shares ISA, Lifetime ISA and Junior ISA

Andy Bell, chief executive at AJ Bell, comments:

"Value for money is a big reason customers choose AJ Bell Youinvest and we are always looking at ways we can share economies of scale with our customers as we grow. Many people are seeing costs increase in many other areas of their lives so we felt this was the ideal time to reduce some of our charges and simplify things to make our charges easier for customers to understand. Importantly, there will be no changes to our customer service and support functions, which we also continue to invest in to make it as easy as possible for customers to manage their accounts."