Sharedealing questions

With our service you will be able to:

• trade in most UK and Irish equities listed on the London Stock Exchange
• trade in government (gilt-edged) stock
• trade in a range of UK Exchange Traded Funds
• open accounts to enable you to hold your investments in sole or joint names
• benefit from the tax advantages of holding your investment in an Individual Savings Account (ISA)
• transfer stocks into this account currently held in paper format or with another financial institution
• view all your holdings online
• benefit from a comprehensive news and company information service
• receive e-mail alerts, to let you know when a share meets your set criteria
• trade via the Internet or for an additional fee, by telephone
• the first direct online sharedealing service is execution only and first direct does not give any investment advice.

The first direct shares service works on a nominee basis.

Your shares will be registered in the name of our nominee company. The shares will be held electronically in your investment account, managed by HSBC Stockbroker Services on your behalf.

Nominee accounts make sharedealing easy because the responsibility for looking after all the administration associated with your investment falls upon us. This means that we will ensure that your dividends are collected and dealt with according to your instructions. You can choose to have your dividends paid as cash to your nominated first direct account or reinvested in further shares. We ask for your initial instruction at the point of application, but you can change this at any time by contacting us.

You will not receive any correspondence direct from the company in which you hold shares, but in most circumstances, we will inform you of any corporate actions. Instructions for which can be given online or by phone.

See the 'registration' section.

If we approve your application, we allocate a trading limit of £10,200. You don't need cash up front before you start trading. If you wish to alter this limit at any time, please contact us. You will need to ensure that sufficient money is available in your nominated first direct account to meet the cost of any purchases on the settlement date.

An investment account holds all your equities and bonds that are not held within other products.

We will open a settlement account for you, linked to your nominated first direct account. You will be able to view all the transactions you make along with any cash dividends you receive, through your settlement account, online. The proceeds of your deals and dividends will be transferred overnight daily (in one transaction) to your nominated first direct account. The money will be taken from your first direct account to pay for any share purchases.

We will settle your equity share deals two working days after the date of the transaction (T+2) and Gilt trades one working day after (T+1).

Your portfolio of shares and cash (where applicable) can be viewed online at any time.

When entering a buy or sell order in UK shares, in most cases you will see a "fixed price quote" on the preview order screen. A "fixed price quote" is only available on UK share orders when the market is open, and may not be available on all orders, particularly large orders. The "fixed price quote" system automatically compares share prices from a number of market makers to ensure that the "fixed price quote" offered to you is the best price available from any of these market makers for your order size at the time you are trading your shares. The price will be shown with the label "fixed price quote" together with a countdown giving you 15 seconds to confirm the order.

Fixed price quotes are not guaranteed. This is because the prices are sourced from third party market makers who may withdraw the price (for example, if there has been market volatility in the 15 second countdown). However, in most cases you will receive the price you accepted. If your "fixed price quote" is withdrawn, we will contact you as soon as possible.

A "fixed price quote" is available on most UK shares, but only when the market is open. A "fixed price quote" may not be available an all orders, particularly large share quantity orders. If you wish to buy or sell a large quantity of shares you should not split your order into a number of smaller orders which may then be executed with a "fixed price quote". This practice is in breach of stock market conduct and may result in your executed orders being cancelled.

If we are unable to offer a "fixed price quote", the quote will be labelled "@ best" with a message "The price at which your order is executed may differ from the indication price". The price you will receive for this will be based on the market price available at the time of the deal and may differ from the "@ best" price shown.

The secure message service is a messaging facility that enables you to communicate with us and vice-versa after you have logged on to the secure site. Please note that you should not send any instructions to trade in this way, as we will not be able to act upon them.

We will send your trade confirmations electronically via our secure message service.

Yes, you can use your tax-free allowance by subscribing to a first direct Stocks and Shares ISA.

Our ISA is self-select - you choose which investments to put in your ISA.

You can even transfer any existing ISAs to us.

There are no annual fees, no management fees and no transfer fees on the Stocks and Shares ISA although individual Investments funds placed within the Stocks and Shares ISA may incur charges. Please refer to 'Frequently asked questions' within the Investment funds section for further detail.

Normally, income from UK shares is paid with a dividend tax credit. The tax credit can not be reclaimed regardless of whether the shares are held directly, or within a collective investment. This applies whether an investment is within or outside an ISA. Outside an ISA, lower and basic rate tax payers have no further Income Tax liability, but higher rate tax payers will have additional Income Tax to pay. However, if held within an ISA, all investors, including higher rate tax payers, have no further liability to Income Tax. By investing in an ISA you are also protected from paying any Capital Gains Tax on any increases in the value of your investment.

Yes, you can set up alerts, which can be sent to any three of five email addresses you register with us. We will let you know when your chosen share meets your set criteria.

By selecting 'the markets' you will be able to obtain market news and charts to help keep you up-to-date with recent developments and trends.

For details on how to contact the sharedealing team and their opening hours please select 'contact us'.