iDealing > Reviews > Ideal idealing.

Author's product rating:   

Competitiveness of charges	Excellent
Coverage of national/international markets	Good
Online - Content/organization of site	Excellent
Online - Reliability/speed of site	Good
Online - Ease of applying for products	Good
Online - Investment tracking	Excellent

Advantages:	Easy, low cost online share trading .
Disadvantages:	None discovered to date

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Are you prepared to buy and sell shares yourself? Are you prepared to invest in your opinion, not someone else's? Do you want a Stocks & Share ISA without all those nasty charges? ....then idealing may just be ideal for you!! (www.idealing.com.)

I was doing some research recently on how I could put my little portfolio of shares into an ISA so that the tax man couldn’t get at my profits (if its possible to make any in this market!) The fruits of my research led me to idealing.com.

This is an online broker where you can buy or sell shares for only £10 per trade. Now you can also name the price you want to buy and sell at and they will do the rest for you for only another £2.50 per trade! It's amazing to think that while you're busy dealing with the trials and tribulations of everyday life, your computer might be buying or selling for you!!

The ISA wrapper costs only £5 per quarter, which is the cheapest I found in my research. The other bonus is that whilst your money is in cash they give you a generous 3% per annum. There are no nasty charges when you want your money back either. They receive all the dividends into your account and then send you on the tax vouchers.

Opening the account has been easy. You have to always pay the money in from the same bank account, either by cheque or direct transfer. (This is to make sure you’re not money laundering!) They then send you an e-mail to confirm all is well.

This is a no frills service, which is just what I wanted. No advice. No information about shares (you can get that elsewhere): just straightforward buying, selling and ISA.

Problems? it maybe that if you want to buy some more “exotic” stocks their availability would be limited. The ultra cautious may also want to explore in more detail the security of the accounts your shares are held in – but this is true of all online services. The initial page reassures you that after 30 mins of inactivity the page will close which is comforting should you be called away mid-view!

Verdict:
This was my first introduction to online share dealing and the low charges soon outweighed those irrational fears! Maybe, just maybe, now might be the time to get in too, if you can find the value!!