Whilst we hear a lot about the trading of shares on the internet it is still a relatively new concept in the UK, but has been a huge success in the United States. As the concept becomes more popular there will inevitably be more providers of this service. Here are a few that have been in existence for a while:

Charles Schwab at www.schwab-worldwide.com/europe

Charles Schwab is the largest discount broker in the US. It operates in real time and the prices are live on screen. Commission varies from a minimum of £15. For larger deals they charge a percentage of the deal value between 0.1% and 0.9% to a maximum charge of £75.

There is also a Frequent Traders Club designed for those individuals who make a number of regular trades. It is a £19.50 flat fee per trade but there is an annual membership cost of £60 and a one-off fee to join the web of £15.

It currently has 6,300 online customers in Britain.
If you are interested in trading on-line then you can sign on to the service via their website. The company will then send you details via the post for completion. You need to return the form with a one-off fee of £25 and they will then send you a user ID and password through the post.

In addition to the website, they can be contacted by telephone on 0171 786 7100.

Barclays Stockbrokers at www.barclays-stockbrokers.co.uk
They say if you need any help or want to find out more about the site you can contact their helpdesk on: bsl.helpdesk@barclays.co.uk. You can also contact them by phone on 0845 6090039 (calls charged at local rates).

Commission levels: £17.50 minimum, 1.5% for trades up to £5,00. 0.85% for trades from £5,000-15,000 and 0.5% thereafter.

Other services

ESI at www.xest.com
This is a division of Charles Stanley and Co Ltd. They have been around as long as Schwab and Stocktrade but at the moment it is not a fully automated service.

For example, with Stocktrade, the price you see on screen is the price the relevant banks are offering and you will deal direct with the market maker and get that price. But with Xest you can see the price and lots of information about share dealing and companies.

But while you can see a live price this is not the same as dealing price.

It is an 'execution only' service so you can type in what you want to buy but it may not be at the price you see on screen. It will be dealt with by a Xest broker who will go to the market and get your shares.

You can however put an upper limit on the amount of the trade, but unlike others, Xest does not automatically match your request with the best offer.

Most of Xest's clients tend to be fairly sophisticated investors, that is investing around £7,000 per trade, but they are keen to attract smaller players as well - there is no minimum amount you can trade.

Charges: £20 flat rate for trades worth up to £50,000. This is cheaper than doing it on the phone as the cost of dealing by phone is 1% of the trade up to £5,000, but cheaper for higher traders.

The reason it is cheaper when you trade via the Internet is because no advice is offered.