How to Set Up a Junior Stocks & Shares ISA with Hargreaves Lansdown

Due to HL’s website having a few issues, this is the best way to get started:

  1. Sign up for a new Junior ISA account here (log out of any existing accounts first).
  2. Set up a direct debit at this point, if you want one.
  3. Add funds or shares to your portfolio.
  4. Set the amount that you wish to invest (likely the same as your direct debit amount).
  5. Check everything, then click ‘Confirm investments’.
  6. Select how you want to deal with income.
  7. Set a username, password, and security answers.
  8. Wait for account approval.
  9. Deposit cash if you want to make an immediate purchase.
  10. Wait 4-5 working days for your investment to process.

We recommend following the detailed instructions below.

We’ve been through the process of setting up a Junior Stocks & Shares ISA with Hargreaves Lansdown multiple times now.

Each time, we faced a small issue — nothing major, but it does mean that we’ve now learned the optimal way to set up your account in order to avoid these issues.

If you don’t do it the way we recommend, you’ll likely run into some of the issues that we’ve explained within the instructions below.

Because HL are offering a Junior ISA with zero fees at the time of publishing this tutorial, we thought it was well worth the trade-off of website usability for increased long-term savings.

1. Sign up for a new Junior ISA account

Log out of any existing accounts if you’re already a customer with Hargreaves Lansdown, then sign up for a new Junior Stocks & Shares ISA via the HL website here.

You can use the same email address that you use with your own account, but this new account should be created using the details of your child as they will be the account holder.

2. Set up a direct debit

If you plan to regularly deposit via direct debit, you should probably set that up at this point.

If you deposit with cash at this point, you won’t be able to set up a direct debit automatically via your online account afterwards — you will have to ring up or download forms. While their phone support has been good when we’ve spoken to them, it’s obviously easier if you don’t have to ring them at all.

Another couple of things you should know about your direct debit which isn’t made totally clear on the HL website:

  • Your direct debit will be taken on the 7th of every month, or on the next working day after this date
  • Your investment will be made on the 10th of every month, or on the next working day after this date

This is slightly annoying if, for example, you had created your account on the 11th of the month. You’d have to wait one whole month for your first deposit and investment to be made.

This is OK though — you can set up the direct debit for now, then deposit cash later in this process if you want to make an investment more quickly.

3. Add funds or shares to your portfolio

Choose the funds and/or shares that you’d like to invest in.

For the purpose of this tutorial, we chose to invest in the Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap Index.

4. Set the amount that you wish to invest

Set how much you wish to invest into your chosen funds and/or shares.

5. Check everything, then click ‘Confirm investments’

Ensure you’ve double-checked the funds or shares you wish to put your money into before confirming your purchase.

Editing your investment portfolio is another thing that’s not-so-straightforward in HL, so making sure you’re happy with your long-term investment choices is helpful for avoiding calls to customer service.

6. Select how you want to deal with income

We chose to automatically reinvest all account income back into our portfolio. You can select whether you wish for this to happen, or if you want the cash to remain in your account until you decide what you’re doing with it.

7. Set a username, password, and security answers

Input your child’s details.

Then, input your own details.

8. Wait for account approval

Hargreaves Lansdown say that account approval can take around one working day. However, for the accounts we’ve set up so far, the average approval time has taken around 90 minutes.

When your account has been approved, you probably won’t actually see anything under ‘Pending orders’ or ‘Transaction history’ if you invested via direct debit. These will show between the 7th and 10th of each month.

9. Deposit cash

If you didn’t already deposit cash but you want to make an investment without waiting for the direct debit to go through, now is the best time to do that. If you already deposited cash, skip this step.

Click ‘Add money’, deposit, then click ‘Deal now’ to set up a manual investment.

10. Wait 4-5 working days

If you invested via cash then you will see your trades in ‘Pending orders’ — they take around 4 working days to go through.

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