AJ Bell Signs Up 152,000 Customers as Trading Brokers Push Into UK Investing
AJ Bell added 152,000 customers in the year to September 30, taking its total to 796,000, while assets under administration hit a record £126 billion.
The company reported that most of the growth came from people managing their own money, as direct-to-consumer customers rose 30% to 602,000.
Platform net inflows rose 37% to £9.7 billion, and assets under administration reached a record £126.0 billion, up 22%.
The fourth quarter alone brought 34,000 net new customers, up 42%, and £2.5 billion of net inflows, up 47%.
Competitors Expand ISA Offerings
Brokers best known for CFDs are now competing for the same pool of savers, though each reports its UK business differently.
IG Group, which bought the Freetrade app for £160 million last year, reported 564,000 average monthly active customers in the UK and Ireland in the third quarter, up 3%.
Freetrade's base slipped 1% to 454,700, while IG's own customers there grew 24% to 109,300.
XTB and CMC Markets have built their own ISA offers. XTB, which launched a zero-fee stocks and shares ISA in December 2024, had more than 10,700 ISA and cash ISA accounts by June.
CMC added fractional shares from £1 to its ISA and pension accounts in July.
Neither Trading 212 nor eToro gives a UK customer count, though Trading 212 said funded accounts rose 69% in 2025 and its UK revenue jumped 72% to £277.6 million.
Savers Embrace Stocks and Shares ISAs
The pool of savers is growing, as Britons put £135.7 billion into adult ISAs in the 2024-25 tax year, £32.7 billion more than a year earlier.
Subscriptions to stocks and shares ISAs rose by 802,000 accounts, according to HM Revenue and Customs.
This outpaced interactive investor, which added about 41,000 customers over the same 12 months to reach 533,000.
Its owner Aberdeen reported yesterday that daily trades on ii fell 22% from their second-quarter peak.
Advised Business Grows More Slowly
AJ Bell's advised business added 12,000 customers, a 7% rise to 194,000, and still holds most of the money: £71.6 billion of platform assets, against £54.4 billion on the D2C side.
Gross platform inflows rose 36% to £21.5 billion and outflows reached £11.8 billion, while market gains added another £13.0 billion.
Assets in AJ Bell's own funds and portfolios climbed 36% to a record £12.1 billion.
Chief Executive Officer Michael Summersgill said AJ Bell would keep investing "to further strengthen our position in the fast-growing platform market."
Summersgill has urged the government to rethink its ISA reform.
From April 2027, the cash ISA allowance for under-65s falls to £12,000 and a 22% charge applies to interest on cash held in stocks and shares ISAs.
Market Conditions Cool
Trading has cooled across the market. IG blamed weaker stock trading partly on caution ahead of possible capital gains tax changes in the coming UK budget.
Organic visits from the UK to the 98 retail FX and CFD broker websites tracked by FM Intelligence fell 39.5% in the third quarter to 13.4 million.
The company will publish full-year results on December 3.
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