- Experts highlight Hargreaves Lansdown Active Savings as a convenient platform for managing multiple savings accounts, allowing users to access competitive interest rates without the hassle of switching accounts directly. The service is praised for its user-friendly interface and the ability to manage both investments and savings in one place, although there are concerns that better rates might be available directly from banks.
- Across 1775 user reviews on Good Money Guide, averaging 3.8/5, customers frequently commend the platform's ease of use, intuitive app, and responsive customer service. However, some users express dissatisfaction with high fees and occasional difficulties navigating the platform. Additionally, there are mixed feelings regarding the efficiency of customer support, with some reporting delays and issues that remain unresolved.
Hargreaves Lansdown Active Savings Expert rating
Our expert rating is the average of the areas listed here, each scored out of 5 by our team.Our experts have rated Hargreaves Lansdown Active Savings across five key areas of our review framework.
- Rates4.5
- Market Access5.0
- App & Platform5.0
- Customer Service5.0
- Research & Analysis5.0
Pros
- Constantly updated interest rates
- Wide range of providers
- Cash ISA available
Cons
- Potentially better rates by going direct
- Cash can be tied up for a set period
See full expert review
Our verdict
Hargreaves Lansdown’s Active Savings won "Best Savings Platform" in the 2025 and 2024 Good Money Guide Awards. HL's savings product was launched by the investment broker in 2018 and lets customers pick and choose from a range of the best easy-access and fixed-term savings accounts. The Active Savings portal is now five years old and as of the end of December 2022, they have helped over 146,000 clients savings, over £6.3 billion.
How does Active Savings work?
The key advantage is that you can get the best interest rates for your savings, by constantly switching savings accounts without actually having to move your money around or open lots of different savings accounts.
You get started by depositing a minimum of £1,000 which you can allocate to as many savings accounts as you want. You’ll receive monthly statements and a warning when rates are about to expire. Hargreaves Lansdown Active Savings is a similar product to raisin, which also lets you manage multiple savings accounts from a single platform.
Emma Wall, head of investment analysis and research at Hargreaves Lansdown said that:
Active Savings provides a solution for the 49% of people who haven’t moved their savings in the past 5 years, and the 35% who’ve never switched. Through one single application, savers can move money between accounts with different banks and building societies in just a few clicks, removing the need to ever complete another application.
Best Rates: You can see the savings products available in Hargreaves Lansdown's Active Savings portal.
“Active Savings is the only UK service where people can manage their investments and savings in one place,” says Hargreaves Lansdown’s head of communications, Danny Cox. “This makes managing your money so much easier than multiple accounts.”
At the moment, the service offers access to over 70 different savings accounts, so you have a good chance of finding some of the best savings providers with the highest interest rates. Hargreaves Lansdown hopes to add more providers in time, which will increase choice.
You can also save money in a cash ISA which reduces your tax bill. However, if you want better returns and are prepared to take more risk, a stocks and shares ISA maybe more appropriate.
The biggest potential disadvantage of the service is that you might be able to get better rates by going to the banks directly. This is because Hargreaves Lansdown doesn’t charge you directly, instead they charge the providers you save with. This means the same or similar products offered directly by the banks and building societies may have different interest rates to those available on Active Savings.
So you are paying a small amount for the convenience of HL managing the process.
And while switching is easy, you need to be sure you’ll take notice of the email warnings about soon-to-expire rates.
If you’re a Hargreaves Lansdown customer, Active Savings is probably going to be the most convenient savings option out there. And with more banks set to come on board, the choice of accounts – and hopefully rates – will soon increase.
Fixed-Term Cash ISAs: Hargreaves Lansdown is also one of the only (and first) investment and savings platforms to offer Fixed Term Cash ISAs that sit alongside existing easy access and limited access options, meaning clients can now spread their Cash ISA allowance across multiple products.
Is HL Active Savings safe? Yes, your savings are protected by the FSCS but this only applies once the money is deposited into an FSCS-protected partner account but not while in the HL holding account.
Customer reviews for Hargreaves Lansdown
Customer ratings come from reviews left on this site. Every review is read and approved before it is published.Based on 1,775 reviews
- Excellent27%
- Very good38%
- Basic24%
- Poor7%
- Bad4%
Read customer reviews
hideous experience
just speechless! I created the kids accounts. They changed the primary person on my child's account without telling either parent, locked me out when I Phoned about a login issue, then dictated what I do in my own home and with whom. Never had an experience like that!
Website
Excellent platform for stocks, shares and cash investing.
Class
Amazing customer service
Efficient
Very simple app. Brilliant customer service. Good range of ETFs, which I use for long-term investing. Brilliant Cash ISA also, with great interest rate. Trusted and credible. I trust my money is in a safe place.
Good
Communication
Intuitive
Good, intuitive app. Very responsive customer service.
Excellent
Easy platform to use
Confidence
Easy to use platform, very supportive and excellent telephone service.
fantastic
They listen then execute the right strategy
Accessible
Easy to use and patient/friendly when contacted. 5he brand provides access at all investment skill and money levels.
Great for junior ISA
Provide good junior stocks and shares ISA
Quality
Been with them for years and I have always felt they provide me with the best service for my needs as being retired now , not the force of old but heh ho still looking . Pb
Bereavement Support - Incompetent and Difficult
Where do I start.
Claiming they sent forms when they didn't. Then sent them in an email, but the forms were not attached.
Provided all information requested.
Week later I get an email requesting more information. We are all HL clients but they have made a bad situation so much worse because of their incompetence and awkwardness.
I have NEVER dealt with a more difficult organisation in thise who bereavement process.
They offer good products but I am seriously considering moving my considerable financial invesment away from HL.
Utterly appalled.
Overall good but the app could be easier to use.
One of only a few providers of a JISA where you can pick and manage your investments. Setting up the account was reasonably easy. The app UI is ok but not great. Can only fund the account through a card payment is a little frustrating but not a deal breaker.
Free JISA and app is great
Opened up a JISA on HL due to fees and ease of use. Good stock universe and the app works very well. Got no complaints
Good but room for improvement
HL Junior ISA is okay but their website and app need improvement compared to competitors like InvestEngine and Trading212.
Operating outside of Law Demanding Facial Recognition to Verify / Fake Reviews
Hargreaves Landsdown operate outside of the law demanding Facial Recognition to verify accounts of both new and existing customers. They will tell you its the only way to verify, but when you look into the privacy law, this is simply not the case.
The system they use is MITEK. A quick search will show you who owns MITEK. Its the same corporations whom own everything.
Furthermore, HL are using extremely unscrupulous resources to keep their image squeeky clean by using BLACK MARKETING sources to write positive reviews. They pay approx £10 a review. Search Black Marketing and you will find many people happy to lie and cheat for money.
Go onto Trustpilot and see how many reviews they receive per day. I just counted over 20 in 24 hours. This is a statistical impossibility.
Now, do you really want a company that lies and cheats and sells your data to look after your hard earning money?
Think about that
I have been a customer of theirs for many years and i am absolutely disgusted at their practices and you should be too.
Good service
one of the very few services that allows for some investments... It could be improved and made even more powerful (i.e. investments in other currencies) but really probably the best platform for easy access and universe of investments possible!
Not as good as they used to be
I've used HL for more than 10 years. They used to be low cost. Customer service was excellent. Online platform was great. Still not bad, but other platforms are now cheaper. Slower to resolve the occasional problem.
Cheap and easy to trade with, but lacking advanced features for active traders
Hargreaves Lansdown are good value for those that are low volume traders of stocks. If you hold funds then they are not such great value because of the admin fees that they charge. However, they don't charge dealing fees on funds which is a good point. A negative thought is that fund trades have to be placed by 9am or 8am for some in order to receive that day's valuation price. Many other brokers have a cut-off time of 11am-11.30am. HL are also one of the slowest to update fund prices - if you check Fidelity, Morningstar or AJ Bell, at 4pm, most fund prices are update, whereas HL take until 6pm or later.
The process of placing a deal with HL using the app is the best of many brokers that I have used as it is so smooth and quick. Very quick to login. However, there are many small companies, foreign companies or investment trusts that don't load up on the app and only can be viewed or traded on the desktop website.
The app and website are my first choice for checking share prices and news/RNS releases for UK stocks. Historical performance indicators are good too. However there is no provision of key metric data like P/CF, Forward P/E, Debt/Equity, Quick ratio, current ratio, Free cash flow yield, ROCE, ROE, ROA etc so I have to go to Reuters or other sites to check such details.
HL has always been very unaccommodating for those who wished to subscribe to IPOs or share offers, I have found other brokers providing access to new IPOs but HL will not.
They also have a strange system whereby they put dividends you receive into a hidden account and then only 2 weeks later transfer them to your capital account to allow you to trade with that cash.
Watchlists are very good in providing current prices and being well layed out.
It would be good if we could see futures prices for US markets and individual stocks in the morning when the UK is open. I have to check marketwatch or investing.com for that.
Why can't you make charts with HL of different stocks all on the same chart?
The total return chart function is great for funds but why can't that be extended to longer than 5 year periods and for stocks as well?
Compare Hargreaves Lansdown Active Savings Against Other Savings Platforms:
Richard is the founder of the Good Money Guide (formerly Good Broker Guide), one of the original investment comparison sites established in 2015. With a career spanning two decades as a broker, he brings extensive expertise and knowledge to the financial landscape.
Having worked as a broker at Investors Intelligence and a multi-asset derivatives broker at MF Global (Man Financial), Richard has acquired substantial experience in the industry. His career began as a private client stockbroker at Walker Crips and Phillip Securities (now King and Shaxson), following internships on the NYMEX oil trading floor in New York and London IPE in 2001 and 2000.
Richard’s contributions and expertise have been recognized by respected publications such as The Sunday Times, BusinessInsider, Yahoo Finance, BusinessNews.org.uk, Master Investor, Wealth Briefing, iNews, and The FT, among many others.
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