Hargreaves Lansdown

Is Hargreaves Lansdown safe?

Yes, for keeping your investments. Hargreaves Lansdown is the UK's largest investment platform, with £172.7 billion for 2.0 million active clients in June 2025. It held £828.1 million of regulatory capital against a requirement of £228.1 million, and client shares sit in a non-trading nominee company with cash held on trust at UK banks. We score it 79/100.

The weaker parts are its record and its login security. HL promoted the Woodford Equity Income fund until it collapsed in 2019, and about 9,600 investors are now suing it. Its website and app have failed at busy moments, most recently in March 2026. And two-factorTwo-factor authenticationSigning in with a second proof of identity on top of your password, such as a code from an app, a security key or a passkey.More in the glossary login is still something you have to ask for.

How Hargreaves Lansdown protects your shares and cash

HL's set-up is simple. Shares are held in the name of Hargreaves Lansdown Nominees Limited, or by an approved outside custodian. The nominee does not trade, so it cannot run up debts of its own, and your holdings are held on trust for you. HL says it never lends client shares, unlike some rivals.

Cash in an ISA or Fund and Share Account is client money, held on trust across 11 UK-licensed banks, including Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and Santander. SIPP cash sits in separate trustee accounts. HL reconciles cash daily and PwC audits both its accounts and its client-asset arrangements.

If HL failed and assets were missing, the FSCSDeposit insuranceA government-backed scheme that repays bank customers up to a set limit if their bank fails, such as the FDIC in the US or the FSCS in the UK.More in the glossary would pay up to £85,000 per person. If one of the banks holding client cash failed, the FSCS deposit limit of £120,000 would apply to your total at that bank. HL has no excess insurance on top.

Who owns HL, and how strong is it?

On 24 March 2025 it was taken private by a consortium of CVC, Nordic Capital and Platinum Ivy, a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, through a company called Harp Bidco. The new owners say they plan a large technology overhaul.

The business itself is very profitable. In the year to June 2025, HL made £405.1 million before tax, or £544.3 million on its own underlying measure. Its capital surplus before management buffers was £600 million, and the HL group had no external borrowings. Private ownership means less disclosure than when HL was listed, though it still publishes full annual accounts. For a platform owned by its funds' investors rather than private equity, see Vanguard.

What happened with Woodford?

In June 2019 the LF Woodford Equity Income fund was suspended because it could not sell its unlisted and hard-to-sell holdings fast enough to meet withdrawals, and it was later wound up. HL had kept the fund on its Wealth 50 best-buy list right up to the suspension. Many HL clients held it, and the episode damaged trust in HL's research.

In 2021 a law firm sent HL a pre-action letter on behalf of investors, which HL rejected. Claims for about 9,600 investors were later issued in the High Court and served on HL in May 2025. HL says it has no liability and is defending them, and its accounts say the financial impact cannot be estimated reliably. Compensation for investors came through a separate scheme run by Link, the fund's authorised corporate director, not by HL. We found no FCA fine against HL.

Outages

The platform has struggled under heavy load. On 9 November 2020, a record trading day after the first vaccine news, clients of HL and AJ Bell reported being locked out or unable to trade. In March 2026 technical problems again hit parts of the website and app, and some clients could not transact for several hours. HL said there was no sign of a cyber incident, and client assets were never at risk. An outage stops you trading; it does not touch what you own.

How to keep your Hargreaves Lansdown account safe

1. Turn on multi-factor authenticationTwo-factor authenticationSigning in with a second proof of identity on top of your password, such as a code from an app, a security key or a passkey.More in the glossary. Call 0117 980 9984 or send a secure message, or set up fingerprint or face login in the app, which counts as MFA.
2. Never give your full Secure Number to anyone. HL says it will never ask for it on the website, by email or by phone.
3. Check the last-login time shown when you sign in.
4. If someone calls claiming your account has a problem, hang up and call HL on the number on its website. Withdrawals can only go to your own nominated bank account.

How we scored it

Regulation (88), financial strength (84) and investor protection (80) are strong: a single FCA-regulated entity, a large capital surplus and a non-trading nominee. Account security (68) is held back by optional MFATwo-factor authenticationSigning in with a second proof of identity on top of your password, such as a code from an app, a security key or a passkey.More in the glossary and the lack of authenticator apps. Conduct (66) is the weakest because of the open Woodford claims and repeated outages. For a smaller app-based UK alternative, see Freetrade.