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Vanguard ReviewBarclays Smart Investor Review
Written by Elizabeth Anderson
Fact-checked by Steven Hatzakis
Edited by Carolyn Kimball, Jeff Anberg
Your capital is at risk.
Barclays Smart Investor is an investment platform offered by Barclays Bank that, like many other DIY platforms, offers an excellent range of investments and accounts. Unfortunately, I found it 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 can get past that, Barclays is good value whether you are a beginner investor or have a large portfolio as its fees are, overall, very low.
-
Minimum Deposit:
£0 -
ISA:
Yes -
SIPP:
Yes
| Investment Choices | |
| Charges & Fees | |
| Website | |
| Education | |
| Mobile App | |
| Ease of Use |
Check out UK.StockBrokers.com's picks for the best investment platforms in 2025.
| 2025 | #11 |
| 2024 | #13 |
| 2020 | #5 |
Table of Contents
Pros & cons
Pros
- Low fees: No trading fees for regular investing.
- Wide range of investments, including mutual funds and bonds.
- Great research tools for comparing stocks and funds.
- Low platform fees of 0.25% up to £200,000 and 0.05% beyond.
Cons
- Financial advice only available to those with above £500,000.
- Slow account setup if you're not a Barclays Bank customer.
- Limited app features without a Barclays bank account.
- You cannot buy fractional shares.
Barclays fees
Barclays Smart Investor overhauled its fee structure in 2024 and its platform is currently a very good value. It has ditched its £4 a month minimum fee and now just charges a percentage platform fee of 0.25% for investments worth up to £200,000 and 0.05% on amounts beyond this.
Regular dealing: Barclays also dropped its £1 fee for regular dealing, and it’s now free to trade if you buy the same investment each month. Trading fees have also been dropped if you invest in a mutual fund.
Share dealing: When it comes to buying and selling shares, you’ll pay £6 per trade on U.K. and international shares, which is on the higher end. But as mentioned, if you sign up for regular investing, you’ll pay no trading fees at all. Barclays therefore offers extremely good value to regular investors who can pay in amounts of at least £50 a month.
Cost comparisons: As an example of how Barclays compares to other brokers on costs, if you hold £49,999 in mutual funds with Barclays and trade four times a year, you’ll pay platform charges of £125 a year with Barclays Smart Investor. This compares to £225 with Hargreaves Lansdown and £75.84 with Interactive Investor. Bear in mind that you’ll also pay management fees charged by the fund you invest in on top of broker platform charges.
If you hold £49,999 worth of shares or ETFs with Barclays and do regular investing, total fees would come in at £125 a year. This is good value compared to a few other traditional platforms, although not the cheapest in its class. With Interactive Investor you’d pay £59.88, while Hargreaves Lansdown is even cheaper at £45 if investing through an ISA. You’d pay nothing if investing through an ISA with a commission-free broker such as Trading 212 or XTB.
Scenario pricing: When calculating annual share dealing costs, trading frequency and account balance are the two most important factors to consider. Assuming a £30,000 portfolio in a traditional, taxable share dealing account, here are five scenarios of how much Barclays would cost based on trade frequency:
- 5 trades per year = £105
- 12 trades per year = £75 or £147
- 36 trades per year = £75 or £291
- 120 trades per year = £75 or £795
- 3 fund trades per year = £75
| Feature |
 Barclays
|
|---|---|
| Minimum Deposit | £0 |
| Share Trading: 0-9 Deals/ Month | £6 |
| Share Trading: 10-19 Deals/ Month | £6 |
| Share Trading: 20+ Deals/ Month | £6 |
| Annual Custody Fee: £0 - £250,000 | £0 - £525 |
| Annual Custody Fee: £250K-£500K | £525 - £650 |
| Annual Custody Fee: £500,000 - £1m | £650 - £850 |
| Annual Custody Fee: £1m and over | £850 and up |
| Bonds - Corporate - Fee | £6 |
| Bonds - Government (Gilts) - Fee | £6 |
| ETFs - Fee | £6 |
| Investment Trusts - Fee | £6 |
| Telephone Dealing Fee | £25 |
What type of trader are you?
New to the world of investing? See my picks for the best UK trading platforms for beginners. More experienced traders should check out my guide to the best UK Trading Platforms for Active Traders. If you're looking to trade shares on the go, read my guide to the best UK stock trading apps.
Range of investments
There is a very wide range of investment choices through Barclays Smart Wealth. The platform offers more than 2,000 mutual funds, 4,000 stocks, 1,278 ETFs, and more than 100 gilts and bonds. You can invest in companies listed on 10 stock exchanges overseas, including ones in the U.S., France, Germany, Sweden, and Canada.
If you’re a beginner, it can be difficult to get started when there are so many choices. Fortunately, the provided Barclays Funds List helps narrow down the funds available. The list includes different types of active and passive funds that Barclays believes are key to achieving a diverse portfolio.
Ready-made investments: Barclays also offers ready-made investments — a diversified portfolio already put together that you can simply buy into. You have the choice of five funds depending on how much risk you want to take. Higher risk can mean the chance of greater returns in the long run, but there are never any guarantees with investing and the value of the fund can go down as well as up. The funds have an ongoing charge of 0.45% a year, on top of the 0.25% platform fee, with no trading fees.
On a portfolio of £30,000, you’d pay total annual fees of £210 for Barclays' ready-made investments. In comparison, other platforms like Lloyds would charge £105 a year for £30,000 invested in one of its ready-made funds (excluding transaction costs of 0.11%). AJ Bell would charge £168.
Financial advice: Barclays offers financial advice, but only for those with investable assets above £500,000. This is handled by Barclays Wealth and is not covered under the Smart Investor brand.
| Feature |
Barclays
|
|---|---|
| Share Trading | Yes |
| CFD Trading | No |
| ETFs | Yes |
| Funds | Yes |
| Bonds - Corporate | Yes |
| Bonds - Government (Gilts) | Yes |
| Investment Trusts | Yes |
| Spread Betting | No |
| Crypto Trading | No |
| Advisor Services | Yes |
Mobile trading apps
I found it quite difficult to log in to the Barclays Smart Investor app for the first time. You need to register to use the app which requires both an account number and a membership number — and those are sent in the post. There are quite a lot of numbers and passwords to remember. It is probably much easier if you already bank with Barclays and have registered for online access to your accounts.
Elizabeth's take:
"When I tested the app, I found it prone to glitches and error messages when trying to fund my account. I also found it difficult to search stocks or find market information, even after putting money in my investment account. I tried to open a current account to use the app fully, but couldn't do this through my investing account on the app or website."
A big downside is that customers who don’t have a Barclays current account can only view their investments, not trade, via the app. In the meantime, you will have to manage your investments on the website or open a Barclays bank account.
Overall, I found the Barclays mobile app not to be a great user experience.
Trading platforms
The Barclays Smart Wealth site is very comprehensive. Once you're logged into your account, you can easily find investments, view news and research, and manage and open an account.
It’s easy to search for a stock or fund at the top right of your account. When selecting an investment, such as a stock, you can see a chart of historical performance up to five years. You can also compare how this stock has performed compared to several indices including the FTSE 100 and S&P 500.
One drawback is that you can’t make comparisons to other companies or indices on the chart when viewing a stock, which is a useful feature offered by many other platforms. However, you can see recent share price performance by similar companies in the sector in table form.
Prices are delayed by 15 minutes. Live prices are available only by paying to access Active Trader, run by external provider Web Financial Group (WFG). You’ll also get access to more charting tools and can create a watch list, which doesn’t appear to be an option through the Smart Investor platform. You have to open a separate account with Web Financial Group to access the Active Trader platform, as you cannot log in through Barclays Smart Investor.
| Feature |
Barclays
|
|---|---|
| Web Platform | Yes |
| iPhone App | Yes |
| Android App | Yes |
| Stock Alerts | Yes |
| Charting - Indicators / Studies | 0 |
| Charting - Drawing Tools | 0 |
| Charting - Notes | No |
| Charting - Display Corporate Events | No |
| Charting - Stock Overlays | No |
| Charting - Index Overlays | No |
Education
Barclays’ research centre is very good, offering a wide range of tools and resources to help inform your investment decisions. You can see the risers and fallers for both the top funds and the top sectors as well as the companies offering the highest dividend yields. There is also extensive research and data on global stock markets. A podcast called Word on the Street, featuring investment insights and discussing topics such as "Where next for interest rates?", is released each week.
Overall, Barclays offers useful information for both beginner investors and those who are more experienced. The research centre is particularly strong, giving access to comprehensive market data and news.
| Feature |
Barclays
|
|---|---|
| Education (Share Trading) | Yes |
| Education (Funds) | Yes |
| Education (Retirement) | Yes |
| Client Webinars | No |
| Client Webinars (Archived) | No |
Final thoughts
Barclays offers a very good service for investors both at the start of their investment journey and those with large portfolios. There is a wide range of investment options and you can save through an ISA, general dealing account, or SIPP.
Charges are on the low side at 0.25% for platform fees, with no fees for regular dealing and free trades for mutual funds. However, you may find better value platforms if you have a very large portfolio and like flat fees, or are looking for a ready-made investment fund.
Barclays Star Ratings
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Barclays
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| Overall Rating |
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| Charges & Fees |
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| Investment Choices |
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| Mobile App |
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| Website |
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| Ease of Use |
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| Education |
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Our testing
Why you should trust us
Elizabeth Anderson has been a financial journalist for more than a decade. She’s written for major national newspapers, contributed to corporate reports and research, and reviewed dozens of share dealing platforms, SIPP providers, ISAs, and brokerage firms. Elizabeth started her career at Bloomberg and has worked for the BBC, The Telegraph, The Times and the i newspaper. She is passionate about helping people understand finance and investing. A keen investor herself, Elizabeth invests through general dealing accounts, ISAs and several SIPPs.
All content on UK.StockBrokers.com is handwritten by a writer, fact-checked by a member of our research team, and edited and published by an editor. Our ratings, rankings, and opinions are entirely our own, and the result of our extensive research and decades of collective experience covering the U.K. brokerage industry.
Ultimately, our rigorous data validation process yields an error rate of less than .1% each year, providing site visitors with quality data they can trust. Click here to learn more about how we test.
How we tested
At UK.StockBrokers.com, our online broker reviews are based on our collected quantitative data as well as the observations and qualified opinions of our expert researchers. Each year we publish tens of thousands of words of research and collect hundreds of data points while testing brokerage firms, share dealing platforms, SIPP providers, ISA providers, and other financial service providers relevant to U.K. investors.
Mobile testing is conducted on modern devices that run the most up-to-date operating systems available:
- For Apple, we use MacBook Pro laptops running the latest version of and the iPhone 15 running the latest version of iOS.
- For Android, we use the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra devices running Android OS 14.
All websites and web-based platforms are tested using the latest version of the Google Chrome browser.
Our researchers thoroughly test a wide range of key features, such as the availability and quality of trading platforms for web, desktop, and mobile, charting, real-time and streaming quotes, and educational resources – among other important variables. We also evaluate the overall design of the mobile experience, and look for a fluid user experience moving between mobile and desktop platforms.
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About Barclays
Barclays dates back to 1690, when two goldsmith bankers set up their own firm. The company was eventually christened Barclays and is now a major global financial services provider, listed on the London and New York stock exchanges. Barclays offers current accounts, savings, credit cards, mortgages, investments and wealth management.
About the Editorial Team
Elizabeth Anderson, lead writer and researcher, has been a financial journalist for more than a decade. In addition to her work with UK.StockBrokers.com, she has written extensively for major publications including BBC, The Times and Bloomberg. A keen investor herself, she is passionate about helping people understand finance and investing.
Steven Hatzakis is the Global Director of Online Broker Research for UK.StockBrokers.com and ForexBrokers.com. Steven previously served as an Editor for Finance Magnates, where he authored over 1,000 published articles about the online finance industry. Steven is an active fintech and crypto industry researcher and advises blockchain companies at the board level. Over the past 20 years, Steven has held numerous positions within the international forex markets, from writing to consulting to serving as a registered commodity futures representative.
Carolyn Kimball is a former managing editor for Reink Media and former lead editor for the StockBrokers.com Annual Review. Carolyn has more than 20 years of writing and editing experience at major media outlets including NerdWallet, the Los Angeles Times and the San Jose Mercury News. She specializes in coverage of personal financial products and services, wielding her editing skills to clarify complex (some might say befuddling) topics to help consumers make informed decisions about their money.
Jeff Anberg is a Senior Editor at UK.StockBrokers.com. Along with years of experience in media distribution at a global newsroom, Jeff has a versatile knowledge base encompassing the technology and financial markets. He is a long-time active investor and engages in research on emerging markets like cryptocurrency. Jeff holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature with a minor in Philosophy from San Francisco State University.