Halifax share dealing review

How we rated Halifax's investment features

Halifax is known mostly for its banking offering. It’s a household name for customers across the UK, but it actually has a share dealing service on offer too. Halifax set up its share dealing brokerage in 1997, when it floated on the stock market. It has since grown to offer a much more comprehensive range of shares to its retail customers.

Halifax was the first in the UK to offer a regular share investment plan, known as ‘ShareBuilder’ and has since expanded into more products. Find out whether Halifax is the right investment platform for you.

Halifax fees

Halifax is a bit of a weird one for fees because it’s extremely cheap in some areas, but quite expensive in others. So, whether it works out cheap for you will largely depend on how you plan to invest.

For the share dealing account or stocks and shares ISA, it costs a flat £36 a year (which works out at £3 per month). This will suit those with larger portfolios because it can be cheaper than being on a percentage based structure where your fees will grow in line with your holdings.

One unique element with Halifax is that it has no platform fee if you open up an 18 to 25 account (if you’re within this age bracket), making it an appealing choice for younger investors.

When it comes to commissions, Halifax hits both ends of the spectrum. It’s excellent value for international investments because there’s no commission to pay (just the 1.25% FX fee). However, for all other UK investments, including funds, investment trusts, bonds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) – it’s a steep £9.50 per trade.

You can avoid this high commission by setting up a regular investing plan. So if you want to invest a certain amount each month in say, a global equity ETF, you don’t pay any commission for ETF investing if you’ve scheduled it in advance.

If you opt for the self-invested personal pension (SIPP) to invest for your retirement, there’s a steeper platform fee of £22.50 per quarter (which works out at £7.50 per month) if your portfolio is under £50,000 and £45 per quarter (£15 per month) for portfolios over £50,000.

Halifax does also offer the option for automatic dividend reinvestment which is charged at 2% of the dividend value (capped at £9.50 per stock). It does also offer the option to use different trading order types (like limit orders and stop losses), which it calls a “TradePlan”. It costs £2 to set up but if a trade is executed, the commission for that trade will be reduced by £2.

If you opt for one of Halifax’s 3 ready-made portfolios, there’s an ongoing management fee of 0.25% for the “cautious” portfolio, and 0.24% for the “balanced” or “progressive” portfolios.

Halifax investment choice and stocks

Halifax has a large selection and variety of investments available, covering a decent range of assets. The fund selection is probably one of Halifax’s greatest strengths, with around 2,900 to choose from.

The lack of fractional shares is a pain, but if you don’t mind that, Halifax offers a lot for investment choice. Here’s a breakdown of the some of the major assets types you can invest in with Halifax:

• Funds

  Funds give you exposure to professionally managed portfolios. This lets you diversify across different investment types, sectors and countries. The Halifax Funds centre provides detailed analytics and an intuitive platform to invest from.

  • Choose from over 2,000 fund managers
  • Choice over management and risk level of fund
  • Free analysis and updates from Halifax Marketwatch

• Shares

  Shares are little pieces of companies. With Halifax you can invest in both UK and international markets.

  • Tips and reports provided through Halifax Marketwatch
  • Can set up a monthly regular investment plan
  • No inactivity charge

• Exchange traded funds

  Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are a type of investment that holds a basket of multiple investments and are traded on exchanges like stocks and shares.

  • Plenty of choice and options
  • Help you diversify and spread the risk
  • Fees are traditionally lower than regular funds

• Bonds

  These are issued by companies in order to raise money, these are essentially loans made to the companies by investors who are hoping for greater returns.

  • Slow, steady and predictable returns
  • Higher return on investment than leaving it in the bank
  • A safer option than shares

Along with all of these, you also have the option to invest in investment trusts, ready-made portfolios and initial public offerings (IPOs). The 3 ready-made options are:

• Cautious. Lower risk.
• Balanced. Medium risk.
• Progressive. Medium to high risk.

The option to invest in IPOs is a pretty unique offering. It’s usually very hard to invest in an IPO unless you’re an institutional investor. Halifax has teamed up with PrimaryBid to offer investors this feature, which lets you buy stocks before they’re available to the general public.

Is Halifax safe?

Halifax is a sturdy and safe place for investors, scoring full marks in our safety and security assessment. As you’d expect, it’s regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

When it comes to security, Halifax has an excellent reputation. It’s part of the Lloyds Banking Group, which is a FTSE 100 company and is one of the world’s largest banks.

Your deposits are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), which means that you’ll be able to claim up to £85,000 if Halifax were to go bust.

Halifax account types and products

Halifax has a decent range of account on offer, including:

• General investment account (Halifax calls this a share dealing account)
• Stocks and shares ISA
• Self-invested personal pension (SIPP)
• Cash ISA
• Business accounts
• Other cash savings accounts

Halifax share dealing account

The general investment account (GIA) is Halifax’s most basic account. Here are some of its features:

• Choose from a range of investment options, including shares, funds and ETFs
• Search for investments with its screener
• Suitable for you if you’ve used your ISA allowance for the year

There aren’t any tax advantages to trading with a GIA, like there are with a stocks and shares ISA, which we cover in a second.

If you make more than £3,000 in each tax year then you have to pay capital gains tax (CGT) on the portion over this amount. And if you breach your £500 dividend allowance, you’ll also have to pay tax.

Halifax stocks and shares ISA

The Halifax stocks and shares ISA lets you use your annual ISA allowance to invest and you can use up to your full allowance each tax year. The allowance is £20,000 in the 2024/2025, which means you can invest up to £20,000 without paying UK tax on your profits.

Other than the tax benefits, the regular share dealing account and stocks and shares ISA are pretty much the same, including the features and the fees.

Halifax self invested personal pension (SIPP)

This account lets you save up for your retirement with tax benefits. SIPPs are a type of personal pension that give you more control over what you invest in.

You can’t withdraw your pension until you turn 55 (rising to 57 in 2028). You can transfer existing pensions over to your Halifax SIPP and consolidate them all in the same place.

You can invest in shares, ETFs and more than 2,500 funds with the Halifax SIPP.

Halifax ease of use

Halifax scored fairly well in our ease of use assessment with a few ways to contact the customer service team and generally positive reviews for its app.

Most reviewers seem to enjoy the Halifax app on Apple and Android devices. On the App Store it has an impressive 4.8 out of 5 from over a million reviews and on Google Play, it has a marginally lower 4.7 out of 5 from over 200,000 votes (as of February 2024).

One thing to note is that these reviews are the whole Halifax banking app and not just specific to the investing experience. Also when testing the user interface, we found Halifax to be quite clunky on both the desktop platform and mobile app.

Halifax customer reviews

On Trustpilot, Halifax has quite a low 1.5 out of 5 “bad” rating from over 4,000 reviews. For other reviews provided to Finder, it has a more impressive 4 out of 5.

Halifax tools, resources and features

Halifax has lots of tools and resources packed into its comprehensive platform. The only area where it’s lacking is the social investing aspect, with no community forum or way for investors to connect and share ideas.

With Halifax, there’s plenty of features like:

• Interactive charting
• Investment research and analysis tools
• Fund and ETF research insights
• Ability to use a range of trading order types via TradePlan
• Option to invest in IPOs at an early stage
• A free account for 18 to 25 year olds
• Learning materials
• Ready-made portfolios

Halifax offers a lot, the only thing we wish is that it was packaged and delivered in a nicer way that’s easier to interact with. Unfortunately, it lives up to the cliche of banks being stiff and boring.

Who might Halifax suit?

This platform is going to be best-suited for those who want to invest using a well-known bank. The account works out cheap for some investors, especially if you’re aged between 18 and 25, because you don’t have to pay admin fees.

If that’s not you, why not compare share trading platforms to find the right fit to match your style.