Barclays vs Halifax 2024

Barclays Smart Investor offers a wide range of investments and accounts and is a good value for those with a midsize portolio who like flat fees. On the downside, it can be complicated to open an account as a non-Barclays bank customer, and you can’t buy or sell investments through the app if you don’t have a Barclays bank account.

If you are already a Halifax bank customer, it may be worth signing up to Halifax online share dealing for simplicity. The charges are in line with some other brokers, but more expensive than others. If you have a large investment portfolio you may benefit from the low annual management fee of £36. If you are new to Halifax, there may be a better platform for you that is cheaper and easier to open.

Alongside the cost per trade, most UK online brokers also charge a monthly, quarterly, or annual management fee, which varies based on the account type and balance. Based on our thorough review, Halifax offers better pricing than Barclays for share dealing.

Assuming a £30,000 portfolio size, here are the total annual costs for share dealing with both brokers, given different monthly activity scenarios.

5 trades per year - Barclays would cost £78 per year, while Halifax would cost £36 - £83.50 per year.

12 trades per year - Barclays would cost £120 per year, while Halifax would cost £36 - £150 per year.

36 trades per year - Barclays would cost £264 per year, while Halifax would cost £36 - £450 per year.

120 trades per year - Barclays would cost £768 per year, while Halifax would cost £36 - £1,176 per year.

3 fund trades per year - Barclays would cost £0 per year, while Halifax would cost £0 per year.

Barclays requires a minimum deposit of £0, while Halifax requires a minimum deposit of £0. From our testing we found for accounts between £0 - £250,000 Barclays charges annual custody fees of £48 - £500, while Halifax charges annual custody fees of £36.

Barclays offers investors access to ISA, SIPP, Share Trading, Funds, ETFs, Bonds - Corporate, Bonds - Government (Gilts), Investment Trusts and Advisor Services, while Halifax offers investors access to ISA, SIPP, Funds, ETFs, Bonds - Corporate, Bonds - Government (Gilts) and Investment Trusts. Neither have CFD Trading, Spread Betting and Crypto Trading. Investing encompasses a wide variety of asset classes, so finding a broker that offers every investment type you are interested in is important.

Self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs) and individual savings accounts (ISAs) are tax-advantaged savings accounts that are an important tool for many individual investors. You can read more about how these accounts operate at Gov.UK: Click here for SIPP information and here for ISA information. Our analysis finds that Both Barclays and Halifax offer SIPP and ISA accounts.

In our analysis of top brokers for share dealing in the U.K., we research whether each broker offers the ability to trade cash cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin and ethereum, which is still a somewhat rare offering amongst major U.K. brokers. Our review finds that neither Barclays nor Halifax offer crypto investing.

Our testing concluded that the website of Barclays is better than the website of Halifax. Barclays offers more functionality, is cleanly designed, and is, overall, easier to use for beginners and casual investors.

To compare the trading platforms of both Barclays and Halifax, we tested each broker's stock trading app. All features compared, our analysis finds that Halifax offers a better mobile app. Dive deeper: Best Stock Trading Apps UK.

Educational offerings are of particular importance to those who are newer to investing, and we examine the availability of several different types of educational materials in our analysis. Our research finds that Barclays offers traders access to Education (Share Trading), Education (Funds) and Education (Retirement), while Halifax offers access to neither of these. Neither have Client Webinars and Client Webinars (Archived).