Hargreaves Lansdown

Marketplace

Who they are

Hargreaves Lansdown was founded in 1981 by Peter Hargreaves and Stephen Lansdown and has since grown into the UK's biggest investment platform, serving around 2 million customers with roughly £172 billion in assets. In March 2025 the company was acquired by a consortium of private equity firms and delisted from the London Stock Exchange, though its FCA authorisation and client asset protections were unaffected by the change. Most people come to HL for their ISA or pension, but the savings side has quietly grown into a meaningful operation in its own right.

Savings accounts

Hargreaves Lansdown is a deposit marketplace, not a bank. Active Savings lets you choose between savings accounts offered by other banks that partner with HL. You are not depositing with HL itself - the underlying bank holds your money. FSCS protection therefore follows the partner bank's licence. The current DepositScout data shows four products: an easy access account at 4.00% AER (variable, minimum £1), a Cash ISA at 4.52% AER (variable, minimum £1, FSCS protected up to £120,000), a five-year fixed Cash ISA at 4.40% AER (minimum £1,000, no access until maturity), and a Stocks and Shares ISA for those who want to invest rather than save cash (minimum £100, investments protected up to £85,000 and uninvested cash up to £120,000). Active Savings products are ordinary taxable savings accounts, so the interest counts against your Personal Savings Allowance - though the Cash ISA wrapper sidesteps that entirely. Rates are variable and can change, so the live figures shown on this page are the ones to rely on.

In 2018 HL launched its Active Savings platform to make it easier for consumers to shop around and take advantage of the best savings account rates using a single online hub. There are no charges to set up, manage or withdraw. Instead, HL charges its banking partners, who pay a percentage fee for every product on the platform - which means equivalent products offered directly by those banks sometimes carry different rates from those available through HL.

Is it right for you?

HL suits savers who want to manage savings and investments from a single login, or who simply want the convenience of switching between partner-bank rates without opening multiple accounts elsewhere. Active Savings is free to use, has a minimum deposit of £1 and is backed by the UK's largest investment platform. The trade-off is that rates may occasionally be a touch below what the same bank offers directly, and the choice of banks is limited to those HL has partnered with rather than the whole market.

There are no current switch offers in the DepositScout data for HL. If you are primarily a cash saver looking for the very best rate and are happy to open accounts at individual banks directly, it is worth comparing HL's rates against the wider market. But if convenience and a trusted name matter to you - or you already use HL for investments - keeping your savings under the same roof is a genuinely practical choice.

Check the live rates shown on this page before you decide, as they are updated whenever HL makes a change.