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Intrinsic Value is all-important and is the only logical way to evaluate the relative attractiveness of investments and businesses.
Intrinsic Value is all-important and is the only logical way to evaluate the relative attractiveness of investments and businesses.
Hargreaves Lansdown’s 2023 Interim Results Presentation. Thank you for joining us here in the room or on the phone. I am Chris Hill, Chief Executive. I'm here with Amy Stirling, Chief Financial Officer. So today, we're going to talk through the highlights of our financial and strategic performance in the first half. Then we'll go on to answer any questions that you might have.
The first half was a strong start to the year with the foundations of our strategy laid and strong financial results delivered. We have delivered record revenue and profit. The benefits of our diversified business model has been made very clear in this period. Our strategic execution is on track. It has been a tough 12 months, but we are consistent in our focus on supporting clients. And let me point to some highlights on this page.
The tough external environment impacted net new business in the period, but clients have used our diversified service to continue to save during this time, driving £1.6 billion of net inflows. And this, together with market movements drove AUA to £127.1 billion, up 2.7% since our full year results. The diversity of our business model is reflected in our financial performance with record revenue hitting £350 million, up 20% on 2021 and profit hitting £198 million, also a record for a first half, and our interim dividend has risen by 3%.
I'm really pleased that over the period, we saw an increase in our client retention to 92.4% and continued to add to our already strong client base, welcoming 31,000 net new clients. And this highlights the strong relationships that we build with clients through the cycle and in all market conditions as well as evidence of the strength, depth and value of our offer for them. The latest D2C data from Platforum shows an increase in our market share to 42% since we last reported. Our focus remains on executing the strategy. Delivery is well underway and key milestones being achieved. I'll give some more detail on this later. But for now, let me hand over to Amy to run through the financials.
Thanks, Chris. Good morning, everyone. The HL business model is a compelling one. Our focus on supporting clients by investing in our proposition to support their needs and financial ambitions keeps us [front] of mind and relevance, regardless of the economic backdrop. Our current investment program will drive future growth, enable us to efficiently scale the business and ensure healthy operating margins in the medium term.
In August, we set out both the strategic pillars that underpin the strategy and the metrics we're using to measure our delivery and performance. So, 6 months into our first full year of delivery, how we're doing? Whilst we've demonstrated growth in both net new business and total client numbers, this is lower than seen in the prior year as expected, given we continue to see subdued levels of investor confidence. Retention remains resilient with client retention at 92.4% and asset retention of 91.4% for the first half. Within service and efficiency, we're looking to maintain our client service levels while streamlining and automating many of our help desk and operations processes so that we can reduce our cost of sales. In terms of underlying costs, we incurred 2 one-offs in the first half that I'll cover shortly. And taking those into account, we're on track, we'll be at the top end of our guidance range and very much on track in terms of our strategic delivery, as Chris will go through in more detail later.
Our colleague engagement results are in line with last year and our statutory PBT up 31%. So off to a good start for H1, let's get into a few of the specifics. Revenue in the period increased to £350 million, up from £290 million in the prior year, both in the first and second half as we saw the combination of base rate rises coming through in NIM and a change in asset allocation towards cash, increasing overall revenue margin for 55 basis points, offsetting the negative market movement driving a reduction in average AUA in the period.
Total statutory cost of $160.4 million increased 14.7% versus prior year, driven by both the expected increase in underlying costs and the impact of strategic spend in the period. In addition, we generated £8 million of finance income on corporate cash in the first half, taking statutory PBT for £197.6 million, an increase of 31% year-on-year. On an underlying basis, costs were £146.1 million, up 14.5% on prior year, including £2.9 million of one-offs, taking underlying PBT to £211.9 million, up just over 30% year-on-year. Underlying EPS increased to 35.5p, and the Board has declared an increased dividend of 12.7p.
In terms of drivers of revenue year-on-year, clearly, increasing NIM has been the biggest driver, offsetting AUA reductions and lower trading volumes. Whilst closing AUA was up 2.7% in H1, average AUA decreased from £139 billion in the prior year to £127.1 million in the first half of this year with an increase in cash held both in investment accounts and in active savings, albeit with very different margin profiles. Monthly share dealing volume averaged $664,000 for H1 versus $885,000 in the prior year, but still significantly ahead of the $400,000 monthly pre-pandemic volumes. And we have seen [chinks] of positivity in January in terms of higher levels of activity, but let's see how this plays out in the weeks and months ahead. Calculating that mix picture of activity into revenue shows the reduction in AUA reducing platform revenues and a step down in trading volumes, reducing transactional revenue of the business as expected. The increase in levels of cash held in investment accounts, combined with the step-up in base rates, drives up revenue from cash to broadly in line with funds revenue.
Active savings revenue, which is included in other, increased to £3.2 million in the period, reflecting the growth in AUA and improvement in margins to 11 basis points in H1. But overall revenue at $350 million is up 20% year-on-year and increases the level of recurring revenue to 84% in the period. From a margin perspective, funds margin has remained broadly flat year-on-year. Equities margin has set down as this is predominantly a volume-driven metric. And we've seen a significant step-up in NIM, reflecting a very different base rate environment, bringing us to an overall revenue margin of 55 basis points in the first half.
Looking at the drivers of cash revenue in a bit more detail. The level of cash held in investment accounts as a percentage of AUA has been pretty consistent over time at around 11%. However, this peaked at 12.8% in June '22 and has reduced during H1, closing the period at £14.1 billion, 11.5% of AUA. Our active savings service enables clients who are actively looking to hold cash and generate an interest rate return to do just that and enables us to retain and grow assets on the platform during a period of low investor confidence. We've seen a consistent level of flow from investment accounts to active savings at around 25%. But the vast majority of flow coming into active savings is new money onto the platform, it's 75% new money from existing clients and 25% in clients to HL with 146,000 clients now having an active savings account.
The chart shows the evolution of NIM relative to base rate movement over the last few periods with the level of pass-through to clients increasing as rates have increased. Since we guided on NIM expectations in October, we've seen a significant political and consequential market volatility, leading to a 75 and 50 basis point rate rises during the second half of Q2. And as a result, we've been able to secure higher deposit rates given revised expectations of future rate rises and the impact on the yield curve. As of January, we reset all our base levels of client rates with a 1% client interest minimum on all accounts regardless of balance held and increased all rates on all accounts since our previous client rates was set in October.
The broader context, the average cash balance held by clients in their investment accounts is £8,000, but the median cash balance is less than £200. Yield curve has stabilized in 2023, giving somewhat better visibility of light trajectory going forward. And we expect to pass the vast majority of any future further base rate rises, including the 50 basis points earlier this month through to our clients.
On underlying costs, we are keeping an absolute focus on managing these. However, like everyone else, we're operating in an inflationary environment and underlying costs are up 12.2% year-on-year. And in addition, we've incurred one-off spend in the first half of £2.9 million. Drivers of cost increase year-on-year are for [real]. There's a number of moving parts here, namely payments, trading and tax spend. Growth in active savings drives up payment costs as it brings new money onto the platform predominantly through debit card payments. As part of our strategic investment, we're building an alternate payment solution, which will reduce this [tax] spend going forward as part of our efficiency and cost-saving initiatives. But for now, this cost has increased. Sealing volumes are down year-on-year and have reduced cost as a result and the build-out of technology capability in the business has increased spend in this area. And inflation has driven increases in our wage costs, energy and insurance costs in the period. A key tenet of our strategic investment program is to create the ability for the business to grow efficiently at scale and to have the internal capability to continually evolve our proposition to meet our clients' evolving needs. This basically means resetting our cost stack over the next 3 years by reinvesting the benefit of cost savings delivered into building out our capability. And I'm pleased then that we've delivered £10 million of cost savings during the period. And as you can see from the chart, this offsets the increased investment in capability that has been made over the last 18 months.
There are 2 specific costs to draw your attention to in the first half, as dilapidation provision increase associated with our Bristol office and a one-off support payment for the majority of our colleagues, recognizing the continued inflationary pressure they're experiencing, totaling £2.9 million overall. As a result of these additional costs in the first half, we now expect to be at the top end of the range of our cost guidance of 9.5% to 11.5% growth for the full year. So, I wanted to update on where we are with our strategic investment program from a financial perspective, as Chris will cover delivery in detail shortly.
At the full year, we said our early focus was on cost efficiency given the broader environment and on delivering the cost savings that were committed as part of the overall investment program. The H1 savings have been achieved in 3 specific areas. The first is headcount reduction in back office, where we upskilled specific teams of existing employees to cover multiple skill sets, reducing the overall headcount demand to deliver the same level of client experience, and we expect to see further benefits in this area, both in terms of efficiency and enhanced client and colleague experience as we look forward. As part of our focus on costs overall, we've upweighted our procurement capability and have seen the early benefits of this investment through the renegotiation of specific contracts, delivering a £2 million benefit in the period. We expect to see continued cost savings driven through this activity. And as we start to see efficiency benefits from building out our cloud capability, we have also been able to reskill and repurpose headcount in our digital function, taking specific teams out of BAU activity and into strategic projects, generating savings in our underlying costs.
So off to a good start on our cost savings. In terms of spend, we've incurred total spend of £23.4 million in the first half, including dual tech running costs and now expect to spend between £50 million and £55 million for the full year, including CapEx. We now have a better understanding of the level of throughput of transformation that the business can deliver at the same time as meeting all our other change demand, including regulatory. So rather than this year being peak spend, we now expect to smoothest trajectory through the investment period through to June 26. And still operating within our overall guidance of £175 million of investment spend and £50 million of dual head running costs.
So, in the near term, we're updating our guidance for FY '23. We now expect to see overall revenue margin to be in the range of 50 to 55 basis points with better visibility on NIM, offsetting volatility in share trading volumes. In terms of margin on cash held in investment accounts, we now expect to see a net interest margin of 160 to 170 basis points for the full year as the step-up in pass-through in January reset client rates, and we expect to pass through the vast majority of any further base rate increases.
On cash, we expect to see a similar level of cash movement from investment accounts to active savings accounts as clients who are actively seeking to generate return on their cash, take advantage of this service. And we are mindful that a material return in investor confidence may lead to a change in the level of cash held in investment accounts. On underlying costs, we guided cost growth of 9.5% to 11.5% for the full year, now expect to be at the top end of that range. And as covered earlier, we now expect total strategic investment costs in FY '23 to be £50 million to £55 million, including CapEx.
I'll now hand back to Chris to update on our strategic delivery
Thank you, Amy. It was just a year ago that I stood up and I outlined a vision to transform the experience that clients have when they're saving and investing. Combining the best of human expertise, the capability of brilliant colleagues and augmenting them with the use of data and technology to deliver an increasingly personalized service that supports our clients to not only manage their wealth, but their financial health and resilience. And since then, we've been focused on delivering this vision across our 5 strategic pillars that we set out last year. We've laid strong foundations and we're seeing key delivery milestones hit.
Our client-focused delivery will continue to enhance the strong and diverse business model that we've developed over more than 40 years. Through the cycle, we have a proposition and a service that meets clients' needs as they evolve. And this period was yet another example of us providing an offering to support financial resilience through all market conditions. Looking at this page, on the left-hand side, clients tell us that they want to be able to trade when market conditions are right. Back in the pandemic, we saw share trading increase as volatile markets and lockdowns, so many clients engage with investing for the first time. We were there for them then and our investment in the scalability of our trading service meant that we were able to manage record volumes of transactions.
We are now investing in the proposition with a market-leading share exchange ISA service, an innovative partnership on retail book and providing clients with digital voting capability. In the middle of the page, clients tell us that they need a proposition and a service to help them to build financial resilience. Our clients are focused on long-term investing. And while this year is clearly challenging with low consumer and investor confidence, this trend will turn. And when it does, we will be there for them, and we are investing in new tools, new funds and new investment solutions to continue to support them. And finally, on the right, clients told us back in 2017 that they wanted access to market-leading cash products. We've seen interest rates increase to more normalized levels over the last year and clients' interest in cash has also increased, particularly whilst investor confidence has remained so low. We were early to invest in our active savings service with these types of conditions in mind, back in 2018, and our dynamic offering with market-leading rates has seen significant uplift in AUA reaching £6.3 billion at the end of 2022 as well as bringing new clients to our platform.
The results show we have the right products for when our clients need them, and we continue to increase the breadth of our banking partners and the choice available to clients. Overall, our platform has the broadest range out there and offers access to market-leading products and services through the cycle and through all market conditions.
Strategic execution has been our focus through the first half. In August, I stood up and outlined clear deliverables that we would be focused on in 2023. And our delivery over the period shows how we have done exactly what we said we would do. In growth, we've scaled our active savings service, bringing more clients and more assets to HL. We've launched the U.S. fund, converted the U.K. income fund and 3 portfolio funds will launch next month. And we have begun pilot testing 2 augmented capabilities, which I'll describe in more detail later. We continue to evolve our service using cloud technology to drive innovation in how we support clients. Our Amazon Connect platform has now rolled out initial capability across the Helpdesk and we've seen a 13% efficiency improvement in the early stages. We've driven a significant capability increase across our trading functionality through partnerships, utilizing cloud technology to introduce voting capabilities, and we've delivered £3.2 million of run rate savings of the £8 million that we planned for this year through procurement and productivity improvements in key teams.
All of this progress is underpinned by investment in core foundations that support our transformation. This includes building out our cloud functionality and security, increasing our data capability, enhancing our data management alongside streamlining payments functionality. Our focus on efficiencies also clear here. We've refocused existing capability on to strategic initiatives, driving £7.2 million of cost savings in the first half. Across each of these strategic pillars, we're demonstrating our strategic delivery is on track.
Our strategy and our ambition to transform the savings and investing experience but directly informed by our unparalleled understanding of clients. We have scaled like no one else as the market-leading digital wealth management service with over 120 million digital visits, 8 million transactions and 700,000 help desk interactions in just the last 6 months. We can see our clients' behavior and their evolving needs as they happen. And we are positioning ourselves to be there for them through all the moments the matter as they manage their money through their lives. We continue to invest in our brand. Our Kantar tracking shows us that #31 of the U.K.'s most valuable 75 brands. We are focused on building trust and awareness.
The trusted relationship we have with clients and our deep understanding only grows as we add more clients, collect more data and use digital technology to augment its use. The opportunities from using open banking and other third-party data sources will only supplement our understanding. And key to this as well is how we are using the data in a way that benefits all of our clients. So obviously, then as a data and a client-led business, our delivery priorities flow directly from that insight and data, enabling us to build the broadest offering and develop the next-generation augmented experience for clients.
So firstly, this data-led approach is evident in the strategic deliveries we've seen in H1. And a year ago, we outlined how we would evolve our investment solutions to meet a broad range of client needs. Our launches are directly informed by our insights. Our clients have shown a consistent interest in U.S. funds and equities, and we recognize this as a gap in our fund offering. We, therefore, prioritized it as an early focus. This data-led approach has paid off. The U.S. fund raised £131 million of new money at launch in November, impressive in the current climate. And it now has £591 million of AUM with conversion of some relevant multi-manager fund money into it.
But one key stat that I particularly want to call out is that 38% of this new money came directly from our clients who are part of our Better Investors program. and they receive regular nudges from us. They needed diversification and they didn't have U.S. holdings. The relationship that we have built with these clients is based upon engagement that the data we've collected and the trust that we have built enables us to deliver the right product at the right time to nudge them to the right outcomes. Data also informs how we develop our service capability. As I said earlier, the pandemic led to a significant uplift in trading volumes and trading levels are still higher than they were before the pandemic. Client interest in this area of our proposition means we again ensured it was an early area of focus. And over the first half, we built functionality in 3 key areas:
We launched our share exchange program. We relaunched our share exchange program, digitizing the process to provide a market-leading offering for our clients at a particularly important time as we enter tax year-end and with the coming changes to capital gains tax rules. Using our digital backbone, we partnered with Broadridge to offer digital voting to clients to make the process of them engaging with the companies that they invest in easier. It's very clear that retail investing will only grow in significance over the next 5 to 10 years, and it needs to have the right level of representation. We have partnered with retail book to offer clients access to capital raisers, and we'll continue to work to improve our retail clients can get better access to a broad range of transactions. We've got the ambition to continue to innovate in this space.
And all of these changes significantly improve our trading offering and are a direct result of client feedback and insight. Our deep data insight and our understanding of clients also means we've developed a clear view of the next-generation future experience that they need to manage their financial resilience. Last year, we stood up and outlined our plans to develop a range of augmented guidance and advice tools. What we outlined at that time was more than just tools or just an advice proposition. It was about how we are evolving the whole client experience to give next-generation support. This journey has already started. We've talked before about our Better Investors Program, which is the first example of how tailored support can drive client behavior. We've now delivered over 690,000 nudges through this personalized e-mail contact and seen significant client behavioral changes, ranging from the 65% increase in educational hub visits to the 38% of fund investors that came from this audience, U.S. fund investors that came from this audience, which I mentioned earlier.
Alongside the better investors program, we've also established clear foundations for how our future guidance and support will be informed, partnering with Oxford Economics to build a 5-point methodology of financial resilience for our savings and resilience perimeter. This provides valuable insights to individuals and stakeholders on the state of the nation's finances, but also plays a key role in the evolution of next-generation experience because of the data and learnings that it provides about different client priorities.
In the first half, we have built and are piloting our first augmented tool and capability. This first step starts with a financial health check built around the resilience methodology I've just talked about and enabling clients to access a personalized report of their finances with educational insight and peer comparison. This provides the insight for them to see their full financial picture all in one place. We're also trialing financial coaching capability. A financial coach is a new role within the business, offering clients support and insight to clear the jargon around their investments and support them in making their own decisions using these digital tools. There's more to come, and we'll update you as we go.
I've had many questions over the last couple of months about augmented advice, what does it look like? When will we see advice charges? What's the revenue model? What we're talking about is HL data gathered over 40 years but being increasingly enriched by our millions of annual digital client interactions and connected to external sources such as open banking data, up-to-date market information and pension dashboards. But by combining deep data analytics with our deep experience, we will create more value for clients by generating ever more actionable insights that lead to better outcomes.
All of our clients will experience the benefits through better informed and personalized journeys. Our new tools will use automation where appropriate, alongside access to coaching or full regulated advice to give whatever support clients need in their financial journeys depending on their confidence, their experience, but the tools will be available to everyone. Clients can choose to use further services just as they can today. They can use coaching and there will be greater accessibility to one-off advice that uses digital insights and human advisers for those clients that need extra support in the moments that matter to them. And alongside this, we'll set a full version of our existing full financial planning offer that clients can already take advantage of if they wish, but it will be more readily accessible.
Providing clients with the advanced tools and support they need helps HL to increase the lifetime value of each client by growing the share of wallet that we access and by increasing the length of time a client invests and saves with us. Benefits will be seen in improved client retention, expanding share of wallet and attracting new clients as they see the value in our differentiated service. The augmented experience is about broadening our service and proactively using data to address client needs across their lifetime by giving them the choice of the level of support, guidance or advice that's right for them and providing a more enhanced and personalized service for all. By delivering this, we are confident of building our relationship with clients, enhancing our share of wallet and client retention and delivering value over the long term to shareholders.
Our augmented tools and capabilities are there to address the needs of clients as they change over time. Today, when we engage with younger clients, they're asking, how do I make my money work harder? Am I doing the right things? How do I get help? And when we engage with older clients, they ask, "Will I have enough? How do I generate income? What are my choices? How do I pass on my money? Data allows us to anticipate their needs and reflect their needs in a specific and personalized way. It starts with providing nudges. It builds with tools and insights and we'll reveal more as we go along.
You can see from this slide that we are growing our client base across all age cohorts, young and old. We know that their needs evolve and change and are different throughout. This means that we have to develop a broad and diversified offering to support them in ways that they find both convenient and engaging to them. We are building and developing a lifetime relationship with our clients. The average age of our new clients is 37. The long-term trend shows us that this is when asset accumulation accelerates. Our developments are driven by data and our use of the scale of this data allied with the capabilities that we're building is a significant strategic advantage that creates value for our clients across their lifetime.
So, to conclude, our first half has been a period of strong performance, again, highlighting the resilience of our diversified business and revenue model. A year on, our strategic execution is on track, and I'm excited about what is to come over the rest of the year. The macro environment will continue to be challenging, but we are focused on what we can control, and we are confident in our business model, our strategy and therefore, in our ability to drive growth through the cycle and deliver value to our shareholders. So, with that, Amy, I'll come to next to you, and then we will open up for questions.
Thank you. Andrew Sinclair from Bank of America. Three for me, please. Firstly, just on the active savings margins. Good to see that up to 11 basis points. Just really wondered if you tell a little bit more about where you see that going in the kind of medium term. And if you've seen any change in mix between instant access accounts and longer-term savings accounts? That's my first question. Secondly was just on cash margins. Just to understand what you're saying about most of the benefits now being passed on to clients. Should we see that $160 million to $170 million as good guidance for cash margins for 2024 as well as 2023-- and thirdly was just on the movement that you saw from some the fund and share accounts into active savings. Is that cash virtually all coming from cash? Or is it coming from other sources as it moves savings?
Okay. I think that's 4 questions anyway. I'll try and address all of them. So, on active savings margin, 11 basis points for the first half. As we've talked about before, our focus for active savings is great service for clients, retaining assets on the platform and growing assets on the platform, particularly given where we are from an investor confidence point of view. So, our focus is not about driving profitability from active savings in the short term. So, running at around that level going forward, we're pretty comfortable with. Where it's come from Andy, is seeing benefit from NIM of cash that sits in the hub account, which is the mechanism for active savings as you choose which product want to pace your cash in. So that level of basis points of margin a decent assumption looking forward.
In terms of have we seen a change in the mix, no, not really. Still early days. But if we've got insight that we can share with you on that going forward, we absolutely will do. In terms of cash margins, should we think about $160 million to 170 million is a decent underpin for FY '24 then yes, that's definitely the right way to think about it. And then lastly, movements. Is it cash coming from investment accounts going into the savings? Yes, absolutely. And we've tried this time around to break that out for you so that you can see the distinction between positive flow coming on to the platform and then active choice by clients to move cash from their investment accounts into active savings.
But it's coming for those investments account is kind of from cash within the investment accounts as opposed to saying in from shares.
Yes, it's predominantly coming from cash. Yes.
Rhea Shah, Deutsche Bank. Two questions. So the first is, obviously, there's been some change in the phasing of the strategic investment spend. Does that mean that some projects are being moved to full year '24 and '25 from this year? Or is something else of changing that? And then second, on -- I think I thought that you were launching cash ISA as well. What kind of margin or profitability could we expect from the cash ISA? And could it start to cannibalize from active savings or vice versa?
So where in terms of the phasing of spend, this is a big multiyear transformation program. And when you get up and running, the reality of what you can accelerate, what needs to take a little bit longer, start to play through. So, it's not about a conscious decision to do things in a fundamentally different order. It's the reality of how we most efficiently use the investment to make sure that we can deliver everything that we want to deliver in the strategic investment program. So, I wouldn't read anything into the fact that we're rephasing. It's just the reality of running a big program like that.
Then your question at the cash ISA, the cash ISA we launched through active savings, it be an active savings product. So, in terms of margin, Amy's just answered that. And so, your question was about -- then about cannibalization. And I suppose the way I react to that is that this is about providing the right service at the right time to client. So, clients themselves using active savings will have a choice as to whether they want to put it within an ISA or not. Because everybody individually will understand what their needs are short term and long term and whether they prefer to invest in such shares over the longer time or longer term or not. But certainly, when you go through a period of really low consumer confidence and low investor confidence, you can see it through all of our numbers that those are preponderance to you think very carefully about cash. And we get such a great deal of insight to that with all of the work that we do with savings and resilience savings and resilience work. The cash side was something that we talked about before. It was a gap, but we're filling that gap. And it's important that it's there because there's a clear demand from clients. So that's what they want to have. And then irrespective of clients' short-term asset allocation decisions, but bear in mind, no retail favor investor will ever use those words at you. This is all about what's important to me, what I'm conscious about now. It's about us providing the right range of tools and service for them to help them through all manner of changes that happen to them through different economic cycles and to the circumstances of their own lives.
It's Greg Simpson from Exane. Can I ask you a question about the flows for the core platform business, Vantage, which were roughly 0 in the period? Some of your peers in the [Indiscernible] does just suggest that some other platforms have been seeing inflows. So could you give any color around what you're kind of seeing in terms of trends behind that? Is it slow gross inflows? Is it higher gross outflows? And what are you thinking about trying to kind of improve that around kind of client marketing group and so on? And then the second question would be on the HL Funds side. Can you just remind us of the pipeline of new products that they're kind of launching this year? I think there's some ready-made portfolios going live and are thinking about where the margin profile on HL Funds trends to in the medium term when thinking about mix.
Interesting questions of on that one. Do you want to just talk to Greg about the margin the breakdown of the flows because I'd like then to make a comment about the broader market. And then we're going to the HSM in a similar way.
Yes. So in terms of flows, we are seeing a slowdown -- slowdown of inflows. I think like everyone else, it's not a surprise. It's a continuation of a trend. And until we see a material uptick in investor confidence, we're not expecting to see anything different. So we're not seeing a step change in outflow. We are seeing a modest uplift in cash coming off the platform as clients need that cash and are choosing to take that cash to be able to do other things with it, whether it's support their families in a more extended way. But nothing which is a fundamental shift, much more just seeing less flow coming on to the platform, as I say, not a surprise. From a marketing point of view, we're still very much in the market. If you watch TV, very hard to not see our TV ad at the moment. And we're doing that really consciously because for us, the pension of existing clients and building and bidding existing clients confidence that we're there for them through the cycle we are there for the long term is a really important aspect of continuing to build that trust. So you shouldn't expect us to take our foot off in terms of marketing investment at all.
Thanks, retention is certainly where I was going to go. So our retention numbers have improved. Our market share numbers have increased. I'm not sure that we're seeing any dynamics in the low-, I won't so much sure I'm very clear that we're not seeing any dynamics in flows that is any different from what we've seen some peers out there. In fact, I'm seeing some periods are actually performing less well. And it's clear the advantages from having a more diversified platform really, really helped. And I think you have to reflect on -- we are a cyclical business and the way that people save in invest is cyclical too. And for me, what's most important is we continue to grow the client numbers, client retention is improving, market share is increasing, and we're still bringing flows onto the platform. to your next question, Greg, was about on margin, I think, is the first bit.
Yes. So on HL funds, you'll know that the overall level of AUM in our funds business has been marginally declining in a fairly consistent way. Actually, we saw that turn around in the last quarter as a result of our fund launches with modest turnaround, but I think a really good indication that if we've got relevant products that are meeting client needs, we should expect to see demand associated with that. Those new products do have a different fee structure. And so we have guided that we do expect to see margin compression in our HL funds, but that's against expecting also to see growth in our AUM. So as I say, modest indications of that growth coming through. And definitely, the fee profile and the margin profile different look at the nature of the fund is very different going forward.
And then Greg, your other piece was about the pipeline. And we laid out an indication of what we're going to do with new fund launches, and we kicked off with HL Growth Fund. We on the HL U.S. fund. We converted the U.K. funds. Next month, you're right, we've got 3 managed portfolios that are launching. And then I'm not going to give you an indication of time table, but there are a bit other funds that then follow on from that. So we are absolutely on track with where we expected to be when we stood up a year ago and said this is what we're going to do. I'm particularly pleased with £131 million new money into that U.S. fund in November. Anyone raising that sort of money into a fund in those sort of circumstances, but it reflects the trust, the engagement, the relationship and the data-driven approach that we take to how we develop.
Sorry, maybe one quick follow-up. I pick up the €8 million of interest income on your own corporate cash. Is that kind of a sustainable level or any kind of one-offs in H1?
No, so we should expect to see a continued level of income coming from our corporate and cash simply given the broader interest rate environment
It's Ben Bathurst from RBC. I've got some follow-up question on client behavior. In light of the higher rates that are on offer, are you seeing yet any evidence of your clients increasing that utilization rate over time and age rather than maybe going into drawdown -- and if not, is that a potential dynamic that we might expect to pay out into your net new business going forward?
That's an interesting question. Thanks, Ben. So yes, we have seen a pickup in demand for annuities with all the changes in interest rates. So yes, we have. And I talk about us having the broadest offer out there. There isn't anyone else in our space from a wealth management perspective, we can offer the annuity broking alongside cash alongside investments alongside advised all of that support. So, I see this as an important element in building that relationship with clients. Does that have a dynamic than I think on our flows? Interesting one! I mean I think the pension freedoms were only in terms of longer now, but only sort of 2015. And if you go back to that slide where you build up and show you how the client picture has developed. It's 2 things that you can see really, really clearly. And I emphasize that we're growing clients across the age spectrum in spite of what commentary might be there. We're growing in the younger elements. What is really important to bear in mind then is the average age of 37 is when assets start to accumulate. So we're green there. But to your question, sorry, is on the older end. You're seeing that shoulder just bring out. So we are retaining clients on the platform because, generally speaking, they are not converting to a new season growth. The pickup in annuities is much more alongside a specialized annuities. -- relating to health. That's where we've spent a lot of time improving that. We're really helping clients get great value from that. But we're also growing our number of clients at that older age as well. So what impact is that having on net flows? That's all reflected in the mix. But what's interesting for us is the ability to be able to mine that data and focus on the different clients in different segments and different cohorts, what the most appropriate mix is for them, and that's what's driving the strategic delivery
Thank you James Hamilton from Numis. Firstly, on active savings, the new to group clients that are coming in there, is the profile similar-ish to your existing [Indiscernible] different? And is there any capacity to cross-sell? And are you doing any cross-sells into the core of the Vantage product as the people have come in for active savings? And my second one is on the slightly better idea around the financial health check and what you're expecting there. And I'm assuming that most of your customers don't have optimal portfolios. I count myself in that particular -- a particular group. Do you have any sort of views on what the sort of number that will reach out to having taken the health check? How many will do the health check? And are there any risks in terms of capacity how good as I need to stick to an HL adviser. And so I'm just going to get a little bit more general view of what you think the output of this health check will have.
Okay. Thank you. So 2 things there. So one, on active savings. So we've seen 30% of clients who are new to HL and have opened an active savings account as the first stop, then open an investment account. So we are seeing something to come through. We remember only when we went to the front foot on the marketing to non-HL clients from -- I think it was -- it was about March, April of last year. So seeing the dynamics of the mix of clients, what they're -- I guess what they're behaving and what their needs are, that data is only going to build from here on in. What I can tell you right now, it's -- it's a very interesting mix. But we are very confident that once you get clients who are new to HL, we've got the ability to be able to engage with them. And then we've got the breadth of the offering that allows us to actually work around to help them to get the right outcomes for them at the time. And I talked before about how I see active savings is that account being much more of the hub for an HL clients and other things will branch off of that. So, I think we're very -- we're pleased with how active savings has performed. Clearly, it's the right service to the right conditions that we're seeing right now. And it's one of the highest [Indiscernible] that we've got in the business. So, we know that, that journey works really well. And then your second check your second comment about the health check. So, it's early days. It's a pilot. It's a small number of things. You've seen us do this before when we've developed services. We kept it close and we just developed it as we go. I know that there are many, many of you who have really, really love to be on that pilot. But sorry, you'll have to wait. What we are focused on in the pilot is usability outcomes that it's leading to and perceptions of value with the client base. And the way that clients will interact with will be different. They will use it as a tool to get a picture for themselves. They will use it to get a picture that they want them to talk through with people and it may or may not lead on to other things. And we will manage and develop that capacity and that capability as we go. But right now, we're just in that early pilot stage. And -- you have to wait for in.
Two questions. Firstly, you talked about a chink of light on investor confidence, I think, around share dealing in January. Could you expand this [bank back]? And I suppose as part of that, talk about the pricing of your share dealing relative to interactive? Secondly, I think you talked about market share growing. And certainly, the statistics and the data back don't support that. I mean, your market share of D2C platforms come down a slight bit and the share dealing sort of that banking. So I'm wondering whether you could talk about that. And then coming back to James' question on financial health or more broadly, it's really difficult for us to judge how well your strategic pivot is going. And I wonder whether you could give us some -- either some level of time line as to when we'll be able to see things like the financial health check feeding into people taking different various forms of advice or whether you'd be prepared to give us what your ambitions are in 5 years' time for what proportion of the cloud base will be taking the different levels of the advice.
Okay. Thank you, Andrew. So there's a wealth of things direct -- so think of light, teams at all-time high. Everybody is reading about that in the press. That that draws people to think about investing in shares. That's wanted. Second thing is it again? It's a fact. It's a fact, yes, I'm hoping to. It's a fact which we've seen in the past. We saw it in the pandemic. There's lots of discussion about the stock market it draws people to invest in. You're asking about chinks of life, right? So these are what chinks of life are. The other thing is it's very clear that clients are app on large amounts of cash. And so when you see instances like the [Indiscernible] budgets and the rockiness that they were in the gilt market, guess what, we saw HL clients taking advantage to the tune of £50 million something, I think, on trades through that. So my point being, the dry powder is there when the opportunities come together, we know that clients are there and ready and willing to act. And as I've laid out, there's a bunch of functionality we're adding to that, too. I think that's how I'd say, well, that's how we see chinks of light.
You've asked me -- you asked a very specific question about share dealing pricing versus interactive. So you're aware of our pricing that sits against interactive. You talked about our market share being at lining. I'm not quite sure where that question then where that question then goes. Market share in the data that we talked about September and September, what I said was we've increased market share since we last reported because it's gone up in March. The platform is report is a report that's not ours, it's external, comes out every 6 months. And I mean pick your point that when I started, market share was at 35%. We're now at 42%, and they are higher than we were back in 2019. We're twice the size that we were. And the challenges, I think, that we've had about the retention, will retention numbers have gone up -- and actually, through that period, as we said, we were very confident in the level of clients that we would hold on to through the pandemic, and that's what we've demonstrated.
And then your question on financial health. I just mentioned retention. That's one of the metrics. We've seen that picked up. But obviously, that's not with the impact of any of the tools that we're using. I know people would like to have visibility and I've said we'll give the visibility as we go, but we're in the early stages of testing. And then in terms of level of ambition, well we laid out the level of ambition in the targets that we talked about in the Capital Markets Day, and there's no change to that.
Roughly, when do you think you will be able to come back to us? Is it in about a year's time, you'll get some -- begin to get clarity and visibility on the success of the Augmented device?
Look, as I said, augmented starts with budgets. We've just been talking about better investors and the impact that that's had and the impact that, that's had on the U.S. bundle. So I think we're pretty transparent in terms of how we demonstrate to you what we're delivering and the impact that it's having on the clients. And that's what you'll see, and that's what we'll highlight to you, which is the impact that these changes are having on clients on their relationships
It's Rahim Karim from Investec. Three questions, if I may. The first is around the rephasing of the spend and whether that gives the company the ability to change strategy with the new CEO coming in kind of coming in place over the next over the next 6 to 12 months than it would have been otherwise. So fortuitous outcome of that change. The second was just to try and get a bridge between the fund's margin guidance for the full year versus the first half, so 66% versus 55% to 60%. And then the third was just to ask about the comments that were made around cash margins for '24. Just trying to understand what happens to that if interest rates start to come off. So is that a 25% impact? Or is there so much headroom that actually you're not so worried about on these?
Okay. Yes, thank you. So let me just take the strategic one. And then, Amy, I'll let you get stuff into the margin stuff. So we're very clear and very confident in the strategy. And as we say, strategic delivery is on track. And the Board, including bans being involved all the way through on that. That's first point. Second point is it's a big transformation that we are going through. £175 million is what we talked about. And we've also talked about being careful and sensible in terms of how we do it. And what Amy outlined is -- and we said this at the time that we'd be very focused on what we can control and being very mindful of costs. And so you've seen the shuffling of priority as far as that is concerned. We've shared the strategic delivery with us. And the strategy has not changed. It's delivering well, and they're confident in it. But Amy, do you want to take over on the margin on.
Sure. So your question about HFN fund margin. as we talked about a little bit earlier, as we launch new funds, which we are seeing and expect to continue to see to drive incremental flow, those funds have a very different pricing structure to those of our legacy funds. And so the guidance that we're giving is expecting to see the building traction of the default scheme, the U.S. scheme where clearly, our pricing is quite different from our legacy multi-manager schemes where the rates are higher because of the complexity of the offering. So we think that they are more current modern funds, will be appealing to clients, but they expect to see that coming through in margin compression. And then cash margin for '24. Clearly, like you were looking at the yield curve and thinking about where that will take us. And our focus is on making sure that we're getting the balance right between generating a return for ourselves and making sure that clients benefit in that, even though this is cash that they're holding in investment accounts, this isn't saving cash. Where it's savings cash. Clients are moving that to active savings because that's a conscious choice on their part. As and when rates start to moderate, I don't think anyone is forecasting significant reduction in rates from where we are now. And therefore, in terms of our medium-term horizon, we would expect to be able to sustain there or thereabouts that level of cash margin. And clearly, as we've done through the cycle, we reprice our client rates to make sure that we think that we're getting that balance right.
It's Bruce Hamilton, Morgan Stanley. Sorry, I've got one on cash margins and then one on Hubris funds. So could you be a bit more specific on the pricing of the new margins from the U.S.? I mean are we talking 10, 20 bps? Or have you disclosed the price that brings that margin down quite sharply even in the course of the next 12 months? And then secondly, I guess, on the cash margins, if we were to assume that U.K. rates they go from 4, 4.5 back to 2, 2.5, are you saying you think you can probably sustain your cash margin about 160 - 70 bps? Or is it a cross cycle like be nearer, I don't know, 100 basis points or something which is only where it's been in the past.
I take the cash margin one. Question.
Yes
Yes. We are trying to be helpful by giving some visibility of based on visibility from the yield curve where we think our margins will be. We're not trying to give a forward forecast beyond where the Bank of England are considering as to what that will mean for our cash margins going forward. So not trying to be difficult in not asking the question, but I'm not sitting here sort of predicting into the medium to long term on direction of rates. What we are saying though is our approach to the way that we set interest rates is a very conscious one. Clearly, we've got consumer duty coming down the line. We're very thoughtful about that. And we continue to look at and consider the rates that we're able to achieve in the market, which clearly is impacted by overall levels of bank liquidity -- so we're very focused on making sure that we do the best job we can for our clients thinking about the security of that cash basis about the liquidity and access to that cash, particularly as and when we see investor confidence change and clients wanting to be more invested than they are now. And then third, our consideration is on yield.
Bruce, your James, you like to help me so I've got a block on with its 60 bps or not. Your comment was on the HL U.S. fund and where the pricing was. I can hear you. Don't worry.
The drop in pricing clearly is being driven by success with new products, which is great. But I think it implies sharply lower prices on the new products. So I just wanted to get a sense of where those are being priced it.
No, it's changed -- you're in my line of [Technical Difficult]
It's Andrew Sinclair from Bank of America again. First let me just on the strategic costs, just with the deferral of some of them over years. How many of those contracts are locked in? And I'm just thinking about inflation is currently still running at a decent level. If it is deferred, does that not push those costs up a little bit in the 2 years? Secondly, I realize Chris, you get asked this question a lot on the augmented advice. But when do you think we will get the targeting structure for augmented device? I'm not asking what it is just where we roughly might expect it? And the third question was just on net addition of active clients. I think last time, you gave an indication that there were quite a number of clients that were actually just falling below what you count as active clients, and it wasn't necessarily people moving off the platform. Can you just give us an idea on breaking down the movement in net active clients? How much of that is actually people being added versus how much is moving between the tens.
Yes. So on strategic costs and what that spend represents. So -- and a big part of that is, let's call it, specialist resource. And given where we are in the cycle, we're expecting that the cost of that may well be coming down rather than going up. So inflation, not equal. As there are many organizations, U.K. and globally because it's a global market, who are reducing their spend and reducing their resourcing. So partly, it's about, as we said earlier, trying to be as efficient as we can in the way in which we invest that strategy. But it's much more about the practicality of running multiple complex streams of change at the same time through a business that hasn't seen that level of investment before. So it's not a -- we're not trying to play the market in terms of inflation and costs -- we're just trying to be pragmatic and sensible about making sure that we are doing this in the right way. And given our cost savings are coming through, we think that it's fine to take a little bit longer in some areas to be able to put that investment to work.
In terms of the net active clients number, I mean, clearly, that is the volatility that's always in our numbers. And where it's having a meaningful impact, and we'll share that with you, we haven't seen that have a meaningful impact in the last quarter, but we'll continue to give you visibility about it, if that's what we're seeing.
And your other one. And I look at -- as I look back at the Capital Markets Day, one thing I thought I have thought about is how this has become a [kitchen holders]augmented advice. -- and try and take that move on. What we're talking about is something for all clients. And what we've talked about is not something that you can see in a product or a vertical way. We're talking about -- and that's the examples that I've shown you when it starts with a nudge when it comes all the way through how that augmented use of data helps the guide and support client choices. So, it's about tools, and we talked about one of the tools. It's about developing capability and in better investor and coaching, we're talking about the capabilities that we've got. And then we're also pointing to you the impact that it will have on the business, on clients, and it's about retention and it's about share of wallet and it's about the length of time that clients invest with us, and it's about the lifetime value that we get from clients. So we'll highlight all of those. We're quite transparent in the metrics that you show you in terms of -- we say in terms of the drive performance. We're showing you the impact that we can see that nudging has because we're taking the U.S. fund at a pace. And when we get to the stage that there are changes in advice, and I'll highlight to those. But no, I'm not going to get drawn on a timing. But what we're talking about is the use of data that we've built up over a huge period of time, and it's us leveraging that data for the benefit of all of our clients to be able to do that in specific ways. It supports clients as their needs evolve and change.
Thank you very much.
And our first question today goes to Enrico Bolzoni of JPMorgan.
So the first question is, sorry to go back again there. But on the augmented advice and at the Capital Market Day, you said you expected to generate about a quarter of the €20 billion menu business from this. And you also say that the reason why you launched it is because you were seeing some of your clients at some point, were leaving because they need a bit more compared to what you could offer. So, I would just like to understand, is this €2.5 billion that you expect to come from augmented advice to come in the form of higher retention of flows from clients that are currently leaving? Or you actually expect that when you're set up and running with the full proposition, more clients, more people will be drawn to Hargreaves Lansdown thanks to the proposition that you will have.
The second question related to that is, I mean, clearly, the macro is still very challenging, and we see it inflows. At what point would you consider to maybe move the targets backward if the macro remains challenging? Do you still think that €20 billion by 2026, so far is very achievable? Or is there a scenario where we will see the guidance being shifted? And then finally, I wanted to ask you, I mean, again, a number of -- I mean, competition is very high of your peers launch new products targeting younger, slightly wealthier portion of the population. I just wanted to ask you, do you think that for the industry as a whole, marketing spend will be higher going forward just because everybody will have to compete a bit more between each other.
Okay. So, on the augmented point, this is what I talked about on the page. So the impact of what we're doing with augmented, we'll see that in retention numbers. So yes, to your question. But we'll also see that in a growth in share of wallet as people have confidence in the platform, trusting the platform, trusting the service and support they're getting, that leads to an increase in share of wallet. So you have retention, you have share of wallet. And I also talked about -- I also talked about new clients as they see the differentiated value in what Hargreaves Lansdown provides. And of course, we're also talking about new fund solutions. And part of what we've demonstrated is the buildup of trust and engagement enables us to direct clients to the right outcomes.
So, this is about using the data, using technology to personalize and support the client, and it works right across the client base. Second point was you talked about the numbers that we talked about to FY '26. And clearly, and I said this back in August, clearly, circumstances has really, really changed the day after we had the Capital Markets Day, we had a ground war launch in Europe. We've gone into a cost of living crisis. We talked about low confidence and investor confidence. So clearly, our visibility is different. However, our confidence in this business to be able to deliver those levels of net new business has not changed. What we're seeing at the moment is the cyclical nature of the business and of markets. But our confidence that this strategy is the right one. It is how the industry will develop. We are leaving that in terms of our -- in terms of augmenting our ability to use the data that we've got, which remember, is so much bigger than anyone else has.
Nobody else has got 1.1 million clients out there. Nobody else has had a 6-month period of 120 million digital transactions digital visits or transactions or any of those. And what we're talking about is using that data to further give and enhance the client experience. And all of that plays back to increasing retention, share of wallet and new clients and feeding the new products and services that we develop. So that's how I think all of that stacks up, and we remain confident in that.
Your final question was then about competition and higher spend on marketing. Well, we certainly for the last 3, if not for 4 years, has been investing in brand. And I talked about how we track that to Kantar, and I think we are 35 in the top 75 brands in the U.K. And you'll see others in the space have started to do the same. And it's really important at times like this and Amy talked about the marketing is not just to new clients, but it's also it's important for existing clients to see their trusted provider out there.
So undoubtedly, the level of competition has picked up, but we continue to grow our numbers of clients. Our retention numbers have improved, and our market share has gone up since the last time we reported, and it's above where it was in 2019. So, I think those results speak to themselves.
Thank you, Enrico. And our next question goes to Haley Tam of Credit Suisse.
Some quick follow-up questions, if I may. Just net new clients of 31,000 in the half year. Apologies if I've missed it. Did you give us a split of interactive savings versus investment platform users that would be really interesting? Secondly, underlying costs, given we're now at the top end of the expected growth range for this year, is there any change to the 8% to 9.5% cost growth guidance you've given for the next couple of years? Just to confirm, -- and then net new business, the €0.3 billion of net flows you saw onto the platform, I think that included the €144 million into the U.S. fund. So if I'm thinking about the other €150 million, could you talk to us a bit about how much of that came from you versus existing clients? And within the existing clients, how much came from your better investors sort of nudging opportunity? And I think those are all of my specific questions I wanted to catch up on.
Haley, -- so your first question about the split from the clients between active savings and non, We don't split out our net new clients in that way. But what we have said is the number of clients that we now have with active savings accounts which is 146,000. And I think the last time we talked in the summer, we had 114,000 clients with active savings. Now that will be a mix of new clients coming to HL and existing HL clients opening active savings. So not quite the question you were answering, but hopefully gives you a bit of a sense of direction. On underlying costs, we've said all along that we're sort of uncontrollable in our underlying cost is inflation.
We set -- as I talked about, we have made a one-off support payments to our colleagues acknowledging that it is tricky out there for all of them. The way our pay cycle works will set our next year's pay round over the course of the summer. So, when we're talking next, we'll have understood where we think we need to be in order to be helping our colleagues in the right way. So not trying to give FY '24 cost guidance yet but would continue to flag the biggest risk in our spend, if you like, is people because it's 50% of our cost base, and it's important that we get that balance right for our colleagues.
And the last question, I think, was about flow split on U.S. funds. So, Haley, the initial new money into the fund will be a mix of new money coming on to the platform and existing cash held in investment accounts being invested into the U.S. fund. So, it's not all coming from that net new business number.
Okay. Sorry, there was also one last thing I forgot to ask about market share. You cited 43.3% this time last year, we said that's now 42.7% because there's been some rebasing of that platforum figure to include facility and IG Group. Can you comment at all on what other platforms might not be included in that figure at the moment are people like Vanguard or Sanco included in that market share at the moment?
I'm not sure I can comment, Haley, because it's a platforum and report and they'll include what we do and it's quite transparent Vanguard, I think to is not in there. I think what I'm pointing to is on that metric, as perfect or imperfect as it may be, that metric has improved, our retention numbers have improved. I've made the comment that we're growing client numbers all across the spectrum. That means we're bringing on young clients as well as we're bringing on old clients. Those are all of the points that I was making as far as market share and client numbers are confirmed.
Thank you. And our final question goes to Benedict Williams of Shore Capital.
I appreciate your time, but I can follow up with the question of the day, which is, I'm afraid, again on cash. Given recent rate rises, are you going to raise again the dates that you pay out to clients on that cash?
Not a great line. Would you mind just asking the question again to make sure.
I was just asking if you were again going to raise the rate that you pay out on client cash.
We've said that any base rate rises from here, including the 50 basis point rise that we saw earlier this month, we expect to pass the vast majority of that through to our clients. So yes, we will be resetting client rate.
Thank you.
We have no further questions.
Great. In that case, thanks very much, everyone. Thank you for all of those questions. Obviously, if you've got any further questions through today, James and the team are very willing and able to accept them. But in the meantime, thank you very much, and thanks for coming. Thanks, everyone.