Booming Hargreaves Lansdown tees up charges Mr Gorham warned that tougher regulation and the accompanying higher costs meant that those in the financial advice industry needed to be "big players in order to be successful." "As with the supermarkets, the bigger you are, the better the deals you can get for your customers or clients," Mr Gorham told the Telegraph. It could be they'll be only four or five big players in future. It could be just us, but there is room for others. The market is still expanding fast. Shares in Hargreaves hit a fresh high, closing up 49p (5.4pc) at 949p, with the stock leading the FTSE 100 risers. Earlier this month, co-founder Stephen Lansdown joined Peter Hargreaves, his former business partner, as a member of the Forbes list of billionaires. He was ranked 974th on the list. Peter Hargreaves, whose estimated worth is $2.3bn (£1.55bn), was at position 641. The pair have hugely benefited from a near doubling in the stock in the past year. Investors have backed the stock on the hope of a boom in DIY investors - a trend which the update suggests is gathering pace. Changes made in January under the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) banned commission payments from fund managers to independent financial advisers (IFAs) for recommending their products. These advisers are now obliged to charge clients directly. But investors are expected to be unwilling to pay for guidance and may instead turn to fund supermarkets, such as the Vantage platform offered by Hargreaves. Some banks have also pulled out of offering financial advice to the masses due to the additional regulatory burden, potentially increasing the pool of financial advice "orphans." However, a second stage of rule changes - RDR2 - is expected to be outlined by the Financial Conduct Authority at the end of the month, banning commission payments to fund supermarkets. Some of these trading platforms have already adjusted to the expected new regime, such as Alliance Trust Savings and Charles Stanley Direct, undercutting Hargreaves by offering "clean" fund classes - those that don't pay commission. Hargreaves, keen to protect one of the best profit margins in the FTSE 100, is yet to announce exactly how it will adapt to the new rules. It was due to give a briefing today on how it might charge from 2014 onwards but this was delayed until the end of the month due to the funeral of Baroness Thatcher. However, the interim management statement today said: "We still await publication of the Financial Conduct Authority's "RDR2" paper. We are not anticipating any surprises. After assimilating the forthcoming paper we will run a process to obtain the best possible prices for our clients on suppliers" funds before offering commission-free funds on our Vantage platform. Therefore in due course Hargreaves Lansdown will substitute fees to replace commission on funds. We have conducted extensive modelling of our potential fee structure and we feel it will be both competitive and excellent value. Subsequent to the transition we see the long term opportunity as positive. Mr Gorham told the Telegraph later: "We favour a percentage based charge." He also said he expected investors across the industry to pay lower fees in future. The operating profit margin disclosed in previous results was 63pc. Based on profits after tax, the company makes £305 per customer a year. How Hargreaves makes money The company makes most of its money by selling funds to investors and retaining most of the advice commission paid to it by fund managers. It also receives a fee - usually 0.25pc of the funds invested - for providing a web platform to host the funds. Across the industry these charges between them average 0.75pc a year, but can be higher. Hargreaves does not disclose how much it is paid for offering each fund. It then hands back some of this commission to investors as a "bonus," averaging 0.17pc.