They say that 'practice makes perfect', so whether you're new to investing or want to hone your skills, here's a way to do so without risking a penny.

The Practice Account is specially designed to work as closely as possible to our share dealing accounts, so if you are new to investing it's an ideal way to experience our services too.

Open a Practice Account and you'll have £15,000 'fantasy' pounds to 'invest'.

Here's a few ideas on ways you might use it:

New to investing:

• pick some investments using the various SharePicker and FundPicker tools then see how well they perform;
• try working out how you'd allocate your money to get a good balance across different sectors, then see how it works out over time;
• See the effect of 'pound cost averaging' for real by making a regular investment into the same company's shares each month.

Try out new approaches:

• Try out a new strategy: see the Strategies pages in the Learn section for ideas
• Have a go at using Stop-loss and Tracking Stop-loss limits (particularly useful in volatile markets) to see how they work in practice.

And if it all goes south, no problem. Just delete the Practice account and set up a new one!

To set up your own Practice Account simply sign-in then click on the 'practice account' link at the bottom of your 'my summary' page.

Not already a customer? Just register now (it's quick, simple and free to do) and you'll find a Practice Account ready for you to use when you sign-in.