RE Matthew #5
I have used Alliance Trust Savings for over 20 years, and been well satisfied.
Website not very easy to use.
Staff helpful, if not effusive.
Rather slow in SIPPs department on one occasion.
Excellent value for money, especially for a buy and hold preference.

I like Alliance and have always found their staff very helpful. Of course they charge for a Unit Trust as they rebate ALL the trail commission(See "what a cheek...)

George

"Criticism over which funds to choose is a little unfair - they are an "execution only" broker after all, just like TDW (unless you want to pay for an advisory service). It is always a case of DYOR and you shouldn't act only on their pushy advertising or "recommendations"."

As I understand it, IFAs are entitiled to upfront or trail commission because they have provided advice. In HL's case, the advice IS their advertising and recommendations.

It is interesting that most comment on here veers towards using HL for the lucrative unit trust buys and someone else for the more difficult equity buying. I incline to using someone who serves me well in the difficult area for everything, it seems unfair to give the cream to the fat cats and the low margin business to those who work much harder for their money. Unit trusts are priced once a day and buying them on behalf of retail customers is a piece of cake. A proper system for share dealing is far more expensive, which is probably why HL charge more for it.

H.L's great plus is that when you phone a real intelligent person answers the phone who speaks and understands English and is capable of answering your query. Also the rebate on annual commission give them a real plus. They also have a very efficient reliable service ( but too much bunf in the post pushing SIPPS ) Their 150 list is optimistic in outlook but makes it much easier to choose a fund than using a blindiold and pin. The real test of their fund picking is the track record of their own HL fund of funds and the list of funds in it versus index profile. For example their Special Situations has done quite well verus an avergae sector fund but still is just about the same in performance of a combined UK & world tracker. For their SIPP where their is no rebate on annual commission choose HSBC low cost trackers, where there is no penalty despite only a 0.3% pa fund charge.

For shares yes their charges are too high and their website is seriously inadequate in not showing forward 2 year broker predictions of pe & div . You have to look at Sharecentre's website for this info but SC share charge is far too high . I use HL for funds but for share ISA's opened a SAGA account which is cheaper and has the great advantage of being able to plug in automatic buy and sell limits.

What I seriously need is a website that shows things like CAP/Net Assets last and foward projections and volotility indicators . None of the providers share sites seem to ,provide this.