AJ Bell vs Nordnet — which broker is better?

Pros

• Custody charge on shares, ETFs and investment trusts capped at GBP 3.50 a month in the Dealing account and ISA, and GBP 10 a month in the SIPP — GBP 42 and GBP 120 a year respectively
• GBP 1.50 online fund dealing is among the cheapest on any UK platform, and regular monthly investing is free from GBP 25
• Share dealing at GBP 5.00, falling to GBP 3.50 in any month following one with 10 or more share deals
• Listed on the London Stock Exchange under AJB as a FTSE 250 constituent, with published audited accounts and FCA regulation
• Which? Recommended Provider for eight consecutive years, 2019 to 2026 — the only investment provider to achieve that run
• Seven-day customer support: phone 08:00–19:00 on weekdays and 10:00–14:00 at weekends, plus live chat and secure message
• Free transfers in and out, free withdrawals, free cash holding with interest paid, and no inactivity fee
• 24 international markets and a deep menu — over 4,000 funds, over 3,500 ETFs, over 400 investment trusts, bonds, gilts, ETCs and warrants

Cons

• The 0.25% custody charge on funds is uncapped up to GBP 250,000, so a GBP 200,000 fund portfolio pays GBP 500 a year where a flat-fee platform charges under GBP 100
• Foreign exchange starts at 0.75% on the first GBP 10,000 of a trade, with a further 0.5% taken when overseas dividends are converted into sterling
• Six of the 24 international markets — Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore and South Africa — are telephone-only with a GBP 10,000 minimum order, which effectively puts them out of reach for most retail portfolios
• No options, futures, spread betting, CFDs, direct crypto or fractional shares, and no demo account to test the platform first
• In-house research is thinner than Hargreaves Lansdown's: a favourite-funds list and Shares Magazine content rather than a full analyst desk with written coverage of individual holdings
• Sterling is the only cash currency, so a round trip in a US share crosses the FX spread twice with no way to hold dollars between trades

Pros

• Commission from 0.25% with a SEK 1 minimum on Nordic orders up to SEK 15,600 — small monthly share purchases are genuinely viable
• New customers start in the 'Kom igång' class with commission-free Nasdaq Stockholm trading (up to 500 share transactions a year) and fund fees refunded
• Nordnet Bank AB holds a Swedish banking licence under Finansinspektionen, and parent Nordnet AB (publ) is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm as SAVE
• Two separate protection layers: the Swedish deposit guarantee on cash and the Swedish investor compensation scheme on securities
• Broad for a domestic broker — shares, ETFs, mutual funds with no dealing charge, options, futures, warrants, certificates and bonds
• No custody fee, no platform fee, no inactivity fee and no minimum deposit
• Nordnet reports to the Nordic tax authorities and the ISK wrapper removes per-trade capital gains declarations entirely
• Scale that is easy to verify: 2.5 million customers, SEK 1,374 billion of savings capital and 17.6 million trades in a single quarter

Cons

• Residents of Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland only — there is no route in from Germany, Austria, Switzerland or the rest of the EU
• Automatic currency exchange costs 0.25%, and the 0.075% route needs a free currency account — open to everyone only on an ordinary aktie- och fonddepå, restricted to private banking and active trading clients on an ISK or KF, and never available on fund orders
• Commission classes step by order size, and the Nordic minimum jumps from SEK 1 to SEK 39 at SEK 15,600 — though a SEK 15,000 order already costs SEK 37.50 at 0.25%, so the real step at the boundary is small
• Support is weekday office hours only, in Nordic languages plus English; there is no 24/5 desk and Trustpilot sentiment is markedly weaker than app-store sentiment
• The Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Finnish price lists have different structures and different numbers, which makes cross-border comparison genuinely confusing
• No fractional shares on ordinary orders, no demo account, no spot forex and no CFDs — active traders will find the toolkit thinner than a specialist platform