S&S ISA: HSBC Global Strategy or Vanguard Lifestrategy

[amy1313]

Hi,

I'm wanting to open an ISA and looking at the above two options. Any advice on which to go for? I prefer the HSBC one as I don't like the large UK bias in the vanguard Lifestrategy funds but I'd have to get HSBC through Hargreaves Lansdowne or similar which is quite a bit more expensive than the Vanguard.

Thanks!

Do you think the HSBC one is going to outperform the Vanguard one by more than the additional cost?

@Sunseed very hard to say. I just had a look at a couple of scenarios with an fee impact calculator and with the amounts I'm looking at putting in, the difference would only be 3-5k over 20 years, so not huge amounts in the grand scheme of things.

Freetrade - choose your own funds?

Have a look at AJ Bell. They used to be cheaper than HL, but I don't know if that's still the case. I'm with them and not planning to move so I haven't compared fees for years now.

@amy1313 Other platforms are available..... though the overall amount of your investment will probably have the largest bearing on the overall charges. HL are pricy at 0.45%, Fidelity and others are cheaper. Going direct to Vanguard will limit your investment options to just their own ranges. You'd have greater choice with a fund supermarket.

I’ve had vanguard funds for a while, first through Fidelity and now interactive investor, including more recently their life strategy funds. They’ve all performed very well.

However, I recently tried to move two of the funds to Vanguard and their customer service had been beyond dreadful. Eg, they told me I couldn’t move the two funds because they didn’t offer them through their platform which was complete and utter nonsense! Massive delays, no communication, general ineptitude.

They were so incompetent I gave up, closed my account and made a complaint.
They wrote to me today to say they are obliged to respond to my complaint within 8 weeks, it has now been 8 weeks but they’ve not yet been able to complete the investigation. Shambolic.
So avoid at all costs dealing with them directly!

Interactive Investor have been much better.

why not look at the FTSE Global All Cap? Charges are similar to Lifestrategy 100 but doesn't have the UK bias. It does include medium and smaller cap companies globally.