Why investors should leave Hargreaves Lansdown This discount is long overdue. Hargreaves has for many years been making thumping profits at its customers' expense. Crucially, it turned every £1 of revenue into 67p of profit. That is a gigantic margin that outstrips the profitability achieved in other businesses listed on the FTSE 100. And here, the money comes from investors' savings, dragging heavily on returns. Reducing charges will help young savers build a deposit for a first home more quickly and others enjoy a more comfortable retirement. That's where the back-slapping ends, though. For while Hargreaves has boasted that its customers will save £8m a year, it won't be dipping into its own pocket for the entirety - far from it. Hargreaves expects the impact on its margins to be negated within nine months. Part of the reason is the hard bargain driven with the investment companies it promotes as part of its "Wealth 150" list of top funds. Investors will from March pay an average 0.1 percentage points less on Wealth 150 funds than they did previously, while a select group of 27 will be even cheaper. In effect, Hargreaves used its position as the biggest fund shop to demand stock-pickers, who are ultimately responsible for the growth of investors" money, earn a smaller fee. As a result, the fund supermarket can advertise lower charges while retaining most of its own generous profits. That's not to say that fund management charges are fair (see our report on this topic). But the message to all investors is this: Hargreaves Lansdown is now clearly an expensive option. The critical number is the net fees paid by investors to both fund manager and fund supermarket. And even without the special discount offered on Wealth 150 funds, the average Hargreaves customer in our example would still be an extra £1,303 better off by switching to Charles Stanley Direct, for instance. For more wealthy customers, firms such as Alliance Trust Savings and Interactive Investor are cheaper than Hargreaves. Check our best buy tables for more. Hargreaves has always argued that customers pay for a premium service. It has an excellent reputation for customer service levels, quality of investing tools, the ease of using the website and superior research and information streams. One director even compared the company to John Lewis or Waitrose in this regard, where customers are happy to pay a little extra. But if as an investor the growth of your money is all you care about, there is now scant justification for choosing Hargreaves Lansdown as your fund supermarket. That's why this matters.