Hargreaves Lansdown has reported a profit of £171m for the six months to the end of 2019, and more than a quarter of this came from its share of the interest earned on client cash.
The accounts, published last week (31 January), showed the company earned £46m from the interest, equating to 27 per cent of the profit.
Clients often have a cash holding in their account, for instance from the change left over from a trade or dividends from investments.
Hargreaves Lansdown places this cash on deposit with a bank, and the interest earned is split between the company and the client.
The accounts showed that Hargreaves clients had £11.2bn of cash in their accounts, and Hargreaves earned £46m of interest.
The 27 per cent is somewhat lower than the percentage for the last full year, when the company posted a profit of £305.8m and 30 per cent of this came from cash interest.
In the same six-month period in 2018, the company had earned £33.2m of interest on client cash when clients held £9.9bn of cash on the platform.
FTAdviser learned at the time that some platforms pass on all of the interest earned in client accounts, while others do not pass on any of it. Some platforms both charge clients to hold cash and retain the interest.
Hargreaves Lansdown did not respond to a request for comment.
david.thorpe@ft.com
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