Hargreaves Lansdown is recruiting 40 new developers, project managers and testers at its head office in Bristol as part of expansion plans for its HL Vantage investment supermarket.

The move will increase the number of IT staff by a third. The HL Vantage Service is an investment supermarket platform providing 675,000 investors with a way to manage their Isas, pensions and other investments.

Recent innovations include free live share prices, "try before you buy" watchlists which synchronise between accounts whether accessed via a PC or mobile apps, online bond dealing, equity regular savings and lower dividend re-investment levels.

The company plans to launch soon a new stock screener, customisable online portfolio display, improved charting tools and a comprehensive broker forecast centre detailing the latest analyst upgrades and downgrades. Plans in the making include new tools to help people with their decisions at retirement ahead of the new pension freedoms in April and extensive new cash management services supported by a new marketplace lending (peer to peer) service.

David Davies, chief information officer, Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The challenge is to continue to provide exceptional support to all our clients, to help them make good, informed investment decisions whatever their stage of life: from the first timer starting a £25 a month savings plan or buying shares in an IPO, through to the highly experienced investor and everyone in between. The improvements we make are all based on feedback from clients, vital to help us provide the service that they want"

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"HL Vantage is renowned for innovation and for the exceptional quality and levels of information and service it provides investors. The expansion of our award winning IT team is part of an aggressive evolution of the most popular direct to investor service in the UK."

Hargreaves Lansdown was established by Peter Hargreaves and Stephen Lansdown in 1981 and most of the company's 900 employees are still based in the company's home town of Bristol. The company administers over £46.3 billion of client assets through the Vantage Service and has a total of £49.1 billion of assets under administration and management. HL is a FTSE 100 company.