In this review, we look at the Lightyear Stocks & Shares ISA, launched in early 2025, and compare it with the Stocks & Shares ISAs offered by other providers.
What is the Lightyear Stocks & Shares ISA?
Lightyear, the investment platform founded in 2020 by former Wise executives Martin Sokk and Mihkel Aamer, now offers both a Stocks & Shares Individual Savings Account (ISA) and a Cash ISA.
ISAs allow you to put aside savings of up to £20,000 in the current 2024/2025 UK tax year (tax-year runs from 6 April to 5 April the following year).
Stocks & Shares ISAs allow people to invest their money in the stock market, either directly or through a managed service, rather than hold it as cash. Investing in stocks and funds generally offers the potential for better returns, alongside a higher risk of losses.
As part of Lightyear’s plans to to reduce excessive fees charged on £100bn of UK ISA savings and investments, chief operating officer Wander Rutgers and former president of trading app Robinhood UK became Lightyear’s first UK chief executive, stating, “Unlike others who’ve tried to enter the UK with no experience, we’ve been live here since the start, so we’ve had years of experience in the UK, combined with years of experience building a ‘global-local’ tailored product in each of our other 21 markets,” Rutgers said.
Lightyear Stocks & Shares ISA Review: Low account and FX fees keep US stock investing cheap
Account: Lightyear Stocks & Shares ISA
Description: Lightyear’s stocks and shares ISA is flexible, meaning you can move money freely in and out of them without losing any of your annual allowance. They also have no minimum deposit. Capital at risk. The value of your investments can go down or up.
Is Lightyear Stocks & Shares ISA any good?
Lightyear has won our 2025 Award for Best Stocks & Shares ISA as it is a great low-cost offering that does what you need it to. It’s low cost, ETFs are commission-free, with an excellent research section on the app. Super innovative and cheap for international investing.
In most respects, the Lightyear Stocks & Shares ISA stands up very well against competing products from longer-established providers.
This is thanks to its flexible and transparent low fee structure. Unlike with many rival Stocks & Shares ISAs, there are no platform fees and no hidden charges, such as transfer fees or penalties for withdrawing money.
This makes the Lightyear Stocks & Shares ISA among the very cheapest. By comparison, the UK’s most used investment platform, Hargreaves Lansdown, carries fees of up to 0.45% on assets in funds and shares held through its platform.
Vanguard, a lower cost alternative, will shortly raise its monthly account fee to £4 for DIY investors with less than £32,000 on its platform (and 0.15% of assets above this amount), including assets invested in ISAs. This amounts to a minimum charge of £48 per year.
To highlight the benefits of its low fee offering, Lightyear commissioned research by Capital Economics that reveals that ISA holders lose over £850 million to account fees each year. The independent macroeconomics research consultancy has also validated that Lightyear’s Stocks & Shares ISA will be 10 times cheaper than the average market provider over 10 years. And 16 times cheaper over 25 years.
Lightyear’s ISA also carries no transaction fees for Exchange Traded Funds bought through the platform, including through its ISA.Keep in mind that ETFs each have their own individual costs, which vary depending on the underlying fund manager.
The ISA does, however, carry standard transaction fees of £1 for orders in sterling-denominated securities, 0.1% up to $1 (minimum $0.01) for US stocks and €1 for European stocks. It also charges a 0.35% fee to convert money into foreign currencies and back to GPB for sale proceeds/dividends etc at the live interbank rate.
Hargreaves Lansdown implements one-off fund and share dealing charges of between £5.95 and £11.95, respectively, while Vanguard’s fund transaction costs ranging from 0% to 0.46%.
Vanguard’s account fee was previously set at 0.15% of assets across the board, and will remain at this level for balances above £32,000.
One possible disadvantage Lightyear has is that it is a newer entrant to the investment platform space, so may be perceived as less safe or reliable than these large incumbents which have been well-tested by their large customer bases.
For a relatively small platform, it still offers a wide range of investment options, however. These include more than 3,500 stocks and funds, including fractional shares.
As you might expect, Hargreaves Lansdown offers many more securities than this, including access to more than 8,000 and 3,000 funds. However, it does not offer fractional shares.
One area where Lightyear could be argued to do less well is in the level of interest it offers on uninvested cash, including in its Stocks & Shares ISA. Here it offers a rate of 3% on sterling, which is below some of its competitors.
However, it also allows users to place their money in high interest “Vaults” product, or money market funds, backed by BlackRock. These currently offer among the best interest rates on the market, at around 4.61% as of 24/03/2025. Vaults are available within the S&S ISA.
Pros
- Among the lowest fees
- Transparent charges
- High-interest Vaults product (QMMFs) within the ISA
Cons
- Relatively new platform
- Fewer instruments than some
- Middling uninvested cash rate
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Pricing
(5)
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Market Access
(4.5)
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App & Platform
(5)
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Customer Service
(4.5)
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Research & Analysis
(4.5)
Overall
4.7
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.
Under Richard’s leadership, the Good Money Guide has evolved into a valuable destination for comprehensive information and expert guidance, specialising in trading, investment, and currency exchange. His commitment to delivering high-quality insights has solidified the Good Money Guide’s standing as a well-respected resource for both customers and industry colleagues.
You can contact Richard at richard@goodmoneyguide.com
