Hargreaves Lansdown has launched a mobile device app to meet the demand for mobile access to websites and online services.

The free HL Live mobile app is the only app which allows investors to view their Isa, Sipp and other investments, and trade funds and shares, on both iPhone and Android systems, says Danny Cox, head of advice, Hargreaves Lansdown

Tom McPhail, head of pensions research, said: “The app will support our private clients, employees of our corporate wrap clients and encourage a new generation of investors who will consider mobile access a necessity.

“The solution to the pensions crisis lies in investor engagement; Hargreaves Lansdown is making it easier for investors to engage with and manage their long term savings.”

The app has been downloaded over 11,000 times since its launch I August, says HL.

 

Over a quarter of adults (27 per cent) and almost half of teenagers (47 per cent) now own a smartphone, according to Ofcom’s latest Communications Market Report. There has also been a forty-fold increase in the volume of mobile data transferred over the UK’s mobile networks between 2007 and 2010 and a 67 per cent increase in 2010 alone.

2010 saw a large migration of customers from pre-pay to contract mobile phone services.  At the end of 2010, 49 per cent of mobile subscriptions were contract, compared to 41 per cent a year previously. This is attributed in a large part to the popularity of smartphones.

Hargreaves Lansdown has seen a 236 per cent increase in people accessing its website from a smartphone or iPad, and some investors have opened Isa accounts through a mobile device.

There are 425,000 apps on iTunes App store and 15 billion have been downloaded up to July 2011 (source: Apple).