DIY Investment Service for Barclays Savers

As part of an overhaul of its stockbroking business, Barclays has launched a new ‘DIY’ investment service targeted at its millions of savings and current account customers.

Users will be able see the value of their investments on Barclays’ online portal alongside each of their other accounts.

Online fund trades are charged at £3 with other investments at £6; a telephone option exists at £25 per trade.

Users are charged 0.2% of the value of the funds they hold and 0.1% on all other investments, with a minimum fee of £4 a month and maximum of £125 per month; there is no minimum investment.

Barclays Stockbrokers is the third largest DIY investing platform in the UK and is beefing up its service in response to the continuing evolution of Bristolian behemoth Hargreaves Lansdown, and the recently merged Interactive Investor and TD Waterhouse businesses.

Most existing Barclays Stockbrokers customers will see charges fall as the two systems eventually merge, and there are plans to roll the service out to non-Barclays customers next year.

Barclays’ Clare Francis said: ‘It’s an entirely new service and platform; initially it’s aimed at making a new range of investments and tools available to our current account banking customers.’

‘After that we will move our existing Barclays Stockbroker clients over.’

Once the businesses are integrated, Barclays plans to improve its proposition for existing stock broker customers as its existing platform has started to look a little jaded in comparison to its rivals.

Long overdue is a mobile phone application to keep abreast of the changing behaviour of investors; Hargreaves Lansdown which has had an app for more than three years reports that up to a quarter of its trading is done from a mobile device.

In this day and age Barclays simply cannot afford not to at least match its rivals in this regard and it also needs to plug other gaps in its offering such as by admitting foreign shares into ISA accounts and providing investment trust research in support of the increasingly popular asset type.

Online stockbroking customers have long demonstrated a willingness to search out the lowest possible commissions, and those lacking leading edge technology can very quickly and easily be sidelined.

For Barclays to target its very large pool of savers and current account customers seems a logical move, but it might also prove very significant in encouraging those receiving negligible returns on cash products to seek better returns elsewhere; managed sensitively and with appropriate levels of education and support, Barclays may be making a significant contribution in turning savers into investors.