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You pay a monthly management fee that covers all costs and charges we incur while investing and managing your money. We think this is easier than charging you complicated fees for each part of the service. There's also a small fund charge which is taken by the providers at source.
In return for your fee, you also get:
Wealthify’s management fees are quoted on an annual basis (0.7%-0.4% per annum) to make them easy to understand, but we collect your fee on a monthly basis. They are taken straight from your Wealthify account and will appear in your recent transactions.
Fund charges average 0.21% and are taken at source by the fund providers.
Our management fees are quoted annually, to make them easier to understand, but they are collected on a monthly basis from your Plan. Your monthly fee is calculated as 1/12th of your annual fee, so a customer on the 0.7% fee band will pay 1/12th of 0.7% each month.
Your actual fee is calculated daily, based on the value of your Wealthify Plan(s) at the end of each day of the month, so that you are only charged for the days of the month that the money is in your account.
The other fees you will pay are fund charges. These vary in cost, but our average is 0.21%. This is taken at source by each fund provider.
Wealthify uses technology to keep costs low. Our algorithms automate some of the investment process, like market monitoring and asset selection, which means we don’t need to employ expensive fund managers to do it. Also, we use mostly passive investment funds in your plan, which are some of the lowest cost funds available, and we’re fully online, so we don’t spend time on costly one-to-one client meetings. We pass all of these savings straight back to our customers through lower fees.
You will pay a management fee to Wealthify, as well as a small additional fund charge to the fund providers.
Management fee: Wealthify charges a simple annual fee of 0.7%–0.4% based on the value of your investments. The fee includes everything we do to look after your money, including setting up your account, buying and selling your investments and rebalancing your plan.
Fund charges: we invest your money in carefully selected, low-cost funds, which incur a small additional charge of typically 0.21% per year. These are taken at source by the fund provider.
To get an idea of what your fee would be, why not check out our Fee Calculator.
You can reduce your fee even further if you join a Wealthify Circle.
Yes, any VAT you are eligible to pay is included in your annual fee.
In addition to Wealthify’s annual fee, you will be charged an average 0.21% per year for the investment funds that we use to build your Plan. This charge is taken at source by the fund providers, so you don’t pay it directly. It may also change slightly over time, depending on the mix of funds we use in your plan (learn more about Fund charges below).
There are no other charges at all for our standard service. If you wish to transfer your investments from Wealthify to another provider without us turning them into cash for you, there may be a small fee. Please check our Terms and Conditions for the transfer costs.
Funds are a cost-effective and convenient way to buy lots of investments all at once. We invest your money in carefully selected low-cost funds managed by reputable fund providers, such as Blackrock, Vanguard, Legal & General and Aberdeen.
Wealthify Investment Plans contain up to 20 funds, and up to 15,000 diverse investments in total, such as stocks, bonds, property, commodities and private equity. We use mainly passive funds, as they are the lowest-cost funds available. But we never pick funds just because they are the cheapest, we always balance cost with quality.
Each fund incurs a small charge, on average 0.21% per annum, which is taken by the fund provider at source. That’s why you won’t see fund charges appear in the transaction list on your dashboard.
All fund charges and other fees are taken into account in the predicted value we give you when you create your Wealthify plan, and in the monthly fee shown on our Fee Calculator.
The fee you pay depends on the total value of your Wealthify plan(s) which, in turn, depend on the performance of your investments and whether you add or withdraw your money. Therefore, it’s impossible to predict what your plan will be worth in any given month, or what fee you’ll pay. You can however use our fee calculator to give you a good idea of what you might pay.
Your Wealthify fees are deducted automatically from your Plan on the first working day of each month and they’ll show up in the transaction history section of your Plan detail page, found in your dashboard.
Fund charges are taken at source by the fund provider and will not show in your transaction history.
No, you will only ever pay one simple monthly fee. This includes all charges from Wealthify and Winterflood Securities.
If you join or start a Wealthify Circle and get two or more members, you will qualify for a discount on your Wealthify annual management fees, excluding fund charges. The bigger your Circle, the more discount you will receive. Learn more about Circles >
Sharing Wealthify with your friends is easy. All you need to do is send them your unique referral code.
You can find your code under the ‘rewards’ tab on the app or in the ‘refer a friend’ section on your dashboard.
This code is a unique link, that you can share however you want – email, WhatsApp, social media etc.
Your friend can use this link to find out more about Wealthify, before choosing to start their own Plan. This link is also how we track the referral bonus, so they’ll need to use this link to be eligible for the £100 cashback.
TERMS & CONDITIONS
Yes – if you have an account with Wealthify, and you have at least one invested Plan, you can refer your friends. If your invited friend goes on to successfully open a Wealthify Plan, deposits at least £250 and leaves it invested for three months or more, both you and your friend will receive £100 paid directly into your Plans.
Yes – you will need to have at least one active and funded Plan with Wealthify to qualify for the cashback offer.
You can refer as many friends as you like, but the maximum amount of cashback you can claim through inviting friends is £3000 - that's 30 people.
You can invite more friends than this to join Wealthify, and anyone who qualifies will receive the £100 cashback, but your cashback for referring friends will be capped at £3000.
For example: If you referred 35 friends and they all qualified, they would each get £100 added to their Plan, but you would only receive a total of £3000.
Any friend you refer would need to be completely new to Wealthify. If they have already signed up but not set up their Plan, they wouldn’t be eligible for the offer. Once they fund their Plan, they can start inviting friends of their own.
Your friend must invest at least £250 in their Wealthify Plan, and join using your unique referral code. The £250 will need to be invested with us for three consecutive months. They can do this by either:
If your friend doesn’t invest £250 as a one-off payment, cashback will be paid once their balance reaches and remains over £250 for three consecutive months. They’ll be able to top-up and withdraw from their Plan, as long as their balance remains above £250.
If your friend doesn’t fund their new Plan within six months, we will close their Plan, and no claim can be made under the offer.
If your friend withdraws money from their Plan which takes them below the qualifying amount, cashback will not be paid to either you or your referred friend.
However, if the value of their Plan falls below £250 due to movements in the market, then we'll still pay the cashback.
The cashback will be paid automatically into your Wealthify Plan within 30 days of our criteria being met. You can see the full criteria in our terms and conditions.
If the cashback is being paid into an ISA and this would take you over your ISA allowance for that year, we’ll pay it directly into the bank account you’ve registered with us.
If you have an ISA with Wealthify and you qualify for cashback, it will form part of the current years ISA allowance. If paying cashback into your ISA would take you over your allowance for that tax year it will be paid directly into the bank account that you have registered with us.
Any cashback that would take you over your ISA allowance will be paid directly into the bank account you’ve registered with us.
Once your friend has had at least £250 invested for three consecutive months, they’ll qualify for cashback. We will pay this to both of you, automatically, within 30 days of the date your friend qualifies.
You can track your referrals when you visit your Wealthify account, where you can see how many people you’ve invited, how many accepted your offer, and how much cashback you’ll receive.
If your friend clicks through to Wealthify from your refer a friend link and creates their own Plan the status will show as ‘signed up’. Once they qualify for the cashback it will change to ‘pending’ until the cashback is paid.
There are a number of reasons you may not receive cashback after you’ve referred a friend.
Due to data protection we will not disclose details of your friends account, but if someone doesn’t deposit the correct qualifying amount or they withdraw money from their Plan within the qualifying dates, they will either invalidate the offer or they’ll need to meet the criteria again to receive the cashback.
You can track your referrals when you visit your Wealthify account. You’ll be able to see how many people you’ve invited, how many accepted your offer, and how much cashback you could receive.
Each stage of the process will be as follows:
Signed Up: Someone has accepted your refer a friend request.
Pending: Your friend has qualified.
Paid: The one you’re waiting for. The cashback has been paid into your Plan.
Not taken up: If someone doesn’t accept your request or doesn’t meet the eligible criteria.
If your friend clicks through to Wealthify from your refer a friend link and creates their own Plan, the status will show as ‘signed up’. Once they qualify for the cashback it will change to ‘pending’ until the cashback is paid.
Cashback will be paid 30 days after your friend reaches the criteria of investing £250 or more and keeping it invested for three months. This means cashback could take at least four months to be paid.
Cashback will not be paid if you close your Wealthify Plan. You’ll need to have an active Wealthify Plan to qualify for the offer.
We are pleased to accept customers over the age of 18 who live in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, or the Channel Islands. Unfortunately we cannot accept U.S. citizens at this time.
Note that you should only open an ISA if you are resident in the UK and have not opened one this tax year. Otherwise please use a Regular Plan.
Unfortunately, we are not able to accept U.S. Citizens due to the U.S. Government’s tax reporting rules. This includes anyone holding a U.S. passport or anyone who has an obligation to pay tax to the U.S. tax authorities.
When you apply for a Wealthify account, we will aak you for personal information such as:
We will use this information to process credit reference agency searches to help verify your identity and searches will leave a footprint on your file, but do not affect your credit score.
At Wealthify, we want to protect our customers, and our business, from Fraud and Financial Crime.
For us to keep your money safe, we need to ensure the information we have about you is correct, so we will:
We will ONLY contact you using the details you have registered with us.
If you have received a secure message from us in your app, or via your registered email address, requesting information or documentation, then all you need to do is respond to the message and our account review team will review your response within 24 hours, and confirm if any further information is required or if our query can be closed.
Should you need any additional support, please contact our customer care team: https://uat.wealthify.com/help-centre
Wealthify considers the security of your personal information to be of the utmost importance and we take several measures to ensure it is kept safe.
Any information you provide on our website is transmitted using secure SSL technology with 256-bit encryption. Where we store sensitive information, such as passwords and bank account numbers, we use strong encryption algorithms similar to those used by the major high-street banks.
We also insist on a minimum password length and require you to use upper case letters, numbers and special characters in your password to make it more secure.
Account security is also your responsibility. You should never share your password with anyone else, or let anyone else have access to your Wealthify account.
You can open a Wealthify Plan with just £1 and there's no additional fees or charges for small value Plans. Even with a small investment, we can build you a plan with an appropriate level of risk for you. Find out more about how we can build you a diverse portfolio for you with just £1
ISA Plans have an annual investment limit (currently £20,000), but for Regular Plans and ISA transfers the sky’s the limit!
Upon receipt of certified proof of death, the assets you hold would be frozen. The investments you hold would remain static, though we may need to sell down some of your assets to recover any fees owed to us. We would then wait for instructions from your legally-appointed executors on what to do with any remaining funds.
We will email you regular reports securely to your Wealthify account. You can expect to receive:
You can also view how your plans are performing online, 24/7 via your Wealthify Dashboard.
Yes, if you wish to, you can request to close your account completely. Please send us a secure message confirming your request. To send a secure message, log in, go to Messages and hit compose. It can take up to 10 working days for us to sell your investments and return your money to you. If you wish to reopen your account again at any time, simply get in touch via Live Chat on the website, call 0800 802 1800, or send us a message.
No, none at all.
Yes, once you’ve opened a Wealthify account you can create multiple investment Plans from your dashboard, by clicking Create a New Plan. Then you just follow the same process you used to build your first Plan, but without having to give us all your details again. You could create an investment Plan for each of your financial goals: kids’ trust fund, wedding, university fees, dream car or just a rainy day fund. There’s no charge for opening or closing Plans and you’ll only pay one fee based on the value of all of your plans combined.
Yes, you can open as many Wealthify Plans as you like for any savings goal. You could open one for each child and name it on their behalf (or even get them to name it themselves!).
Plus, if you’re not already using your full annual ISA allowance, you could make your child’s Plan an ISA plan, so that they benefit from tax-free savings.
We are working hard to bring you JISAs (which give your children their own tax-free savings allowance on top of your own).
No, not at the moment, but we are planning to in the future, so watch this space.
Yes, we can provide you with a discretionary letter. This confirms to your employer that Wealthify is a discretionary investment management service, meaning that we have complete discretion over your investments and you cannot influence any decisions we make. This is usually acceptable to most employers and should negate the need for you to declare each individual investment we buy for you. Instead, you would just need to log Wealthify as a single investment.
However, company policy varies between employers and it’s advisable to check with your employer first.
You can currently only register one bank account for deposits and withdrawals into your Wealthify account. If you would like your registered bank account changed then you must contact Customer Services and provide evidence of both your current account registered and your new one. The evidence must be in the form of a recent bank statement showing your name, account number and sort code so we can verify your new details and update your account. If you attempt to pay in using an account not yet registered with Wealthify, unfortunately we will have to return the payment to the account it came from.
From time to time, it’s necessary to ask customers to supply a copy of their bank statement, to check the account holder’s name and/or address match their Wealthify account. This is to ensure that payments are not made by 3rd parties.
The quickest way to provide a statement is to download a copy from your online banking service. More information about how to do this can be found on our Guide to Downloading Bank Statements.
Once you’ve downloaded a copy, send it to us in a secure message, via your Wealthify account. To do this simply sign in to your account, go to the messages tab and hit ‘Compose’, then attach your bank statement to the message.
If you receive paper bank statements, you can use your phone to take a photo of the statement (please ensure it’s face-on, clear and in focus), then sign into your Wealthify account via your phone's browser and send us a secure message with the photo attached. We also accept document scans, if that’s easier.
You can also send a paper copy (not the original) by post to: Wealthify, Tec Marina, Terra Nova Way, Penarth, CF64 1SA.
You can update your marketing preferences any time. All you need to do is sign in to your account, go to your profile and change them in ‘Preferences’.
Capital is just another way of saying 'the money you invest'. There’s always a risk with investing that you might not get back everything you put in.
Your money is invested into mainly passive investment funds, such as Exchange Traded Funds [ETFs] and Mutual funds
A fund is a bundle of lots of individual assets, like stocks, bond or property, which you buy all in one go – this makes buying funds a cost-effective way to invest and diversify your portfolio.
Our experts have pre-selected a range of passive investment funds, which we use to build your Wealthify Personal Investment Plan. The mix of funds in your plan will depend on your attitude to risk – if you have a low risk appetite, your Plan will contain a higher percentage of low-risk funds. Higher-risk Plans will include more high-risk investments. Since financial markets are always changing, we might make small periodic changes to the mix of funds in your plan to make sure it still matches your risk profile and goals.
Why invest in one company, when you can invest in them all? That’s the essence of passive investing. Instead of putting all your eggs in one basket and relying on one particular company to perform well, you spread your money across all of them, so that you benefit from their collective strength. To do this, you need funds like ETFs and Mutual Funds (known as passive investment vehicles). These let your money track an index like the FTSE 100, which is composed of the 100 largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange – companies like Royal Dutch Shell, BT Group and Unilever.
Passive investing is generally accepted as a more effective long-term strategy than the alternative, active investing, where fund managers try to pick the stocks they think will do best. The Dow S&P Indices show that as few as 14% of active fund managers actually manage to beat the market each year, when looked at over a long time period.
Your plan will consist of a mix of assets, such as shares, government bonds, corporate bonds, cash, property, private equity, commodities and hedge funds. You can find out more about all of these in the Glossary. The exact combination will depend on the preferences you give us when you apply, and will change over time.
Yes, you will always own the underlying funds in your Wealthify Plan. There is no master fund into which your money is invested, as you’ll find with some services. This is an advantage for you, as it means you can see exactly what we are buying and selling for your Plan. We list the assets you own in the Plan detail screen, found in your dashboard and we send you a transaction receipt for every purchase and sale – so you always know where your money is.
No, that’s what we’re here for. You only need to tell us your investment style and how much you want to invest, and we do everything else. Our investment team have pre-selected a range of passive funds, and programmed our automated investment system with algorithms (mathematical formulas) that build your Plan based on what you tell us your goals are.
Cash is a type of investment (or asset) itself. It’s a low risk asset, so the return on cash is typically low, but it’s a good way to help protect investors from losses if there’s an indication that markets might lose value. The amount of cash and cash equivalent assets in your plan will depend on the level of risk you choose and will be adjusted periodically in response to market movements.
When you build your Wealthify Personal Investment Plan, we give you a calculation of what it could be worth at the end of your investment timeline. The calculation uses past benchmark data (see explanation below) to predict future performance, so you should only take it as a guide, not a guarantee. With investing, there are no guaranteed returns and you should remember that the exact value of your plan could be more or less than you expect.
We publish our benchmarks in the valuations we send to all customers, to give you something to compare the performance of your plan against.
We use ARC Private Client Indices as the benchmarks for the majority of our Plans, rather than an index such as the FTSE 100, because we feel it more closely matches the type of diversified investment plans that Wealthify offers. The ARC Private Client Indices are a peer group benchmark which show how other companies’ investment styles have performed. The Indices are based on real performance numbers from hundreds of other Plans. Learn more about ARC Indices.
For our Cautious Plan, we use the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is the UK’s main measure of inflation, or the speed at which the prices of goods and services bought by households rise and fall.
It’s important to remember that benchmarks and predictions are never perfect and past performance is not an indicator of future growth.
Here are the benchmarks we use for each of our five Investment Styles
| Wealthify Cautious | Consumer Price Index |
| Wealthify Tentative | ARC Sterling Cautious PCI |
| Wealthify Confident | ARC Balanced Asset PCI |
| Wealthify Ambitious | ARC Sterling Steady Growth PCI |
| Wealthify Adventurous | ARC Sterling Equity Risk PCI |
With investing your capital is at risk and you could get back less than you put in. As an investor, it’s important to understand that stock markets have good periods and bad periods and that you shouldn’t panic at first sight of a bad period. You should think of investing as a long-term prospect, and remember that markets will generally see growth over the long-term.
Yes, if you are a UK resident (England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland) you can use all, or part of your annual tax-efficient savings allowance of £20,000 (current tax year) to invest in a Stocks and Shares ISA with Wealthify. We don’t offer cash ISAs, Innovative Finance ISAs or Lifetime ISAs. Take a look at our ISA page for more information.
Yes, you can build as many Plans as you like. Some people prefer to keep their money all in one pot, others will prefer to split it into separate savings pots - Wealthify lets you do either. You can even choose different investment styles for each Plan. Whatever you decide, you can rest assured that there’s no additional charge for creating more than one Plan, you’ll only pay our simple management fee of 0.7%-0.4% per annum, depending on the total value of your investments, plus an average underlying fund charge of 0.19% per year.
Your investments will be held with our custodian bank, Winterflood Securities, a global financial services provider and part of Close Brothers Group, who have been trading for more than 130 years. Winterflood Securities hold your assets separately (ring-fenced) from Wealthify, so even if we went into administration, our creditors would not have a claim to your investments. The first £50,000 of your investments may also be covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, however, it’s important to understand that the FSCS doesn't cover you in the event that your investments do not perform as expected and you get back less than you originally invested. For more information visit https://www.fscs.org.uk/
No, we won’t tell you when we adjust your Plan. We build and manage your plan for you on a discretionary basis and depending on what the markets do, we could be adjusting your Plan regularly, so it wouldn’t be practical to let you know. You can, however track your investments via your dashboard at any time to see exactly what investments you are holding and how your Plan is performing.
There is currently no facility for this, but there may be in future. You can access and withdraw your money 24/7, although it’s worth remembering that making regular withdrawals will affect how quickly you reach the investment goals you set when you created your plan.
We typically invest your money within two working days of receiving it. However, it may take a couple of extra days for the investments to show on your dashboard, due to the investing process.
We’re not a fully-automated investment service. We automate certain parts of the investment process, like monitoring how well global markets are performing, using computers programmed with algorithms (mathematical formulas). This is more cost-effective than having highly-paid fund managers do it and we pass those savings onto you. Our experts use the market information along with their own their knowledge and experience, to make small adjustments to the mix of funds in your investment plan, where appropriate. So Wealthify uses a mix of smart algorithms and human expertise to make sure your plan stays on track.
Your returns are shown at the top of your dashboard as a percentage and actual monetary value, so you always know exactly how your investments are performing.
We calculate your returns using the ‘Time-Weighted Rate of Return’ (TWRR) method, which is widely used within the investment management industry. This is the clearest way to show you your actual return (i.e. how much your money has grown) because it ignores any cash deposits or withdrawals you might have made in the meantime. In other words, it only tells you how much you’ve gained or lost from your investments, not what you’ve put in or taken out yourself.
On request, we can show you your return calculated by another method, called the ‘Internal Rate of Return (IRR)’. This shows the actual performance of your Plan including the effects of when you added or withdrew money from your Plan.
You can have and pay into as many General Investment Accounts as you like. This is particularly useful if you’ve used your annual ISA allowance, as you can continue to invest your money in multiple GIAs without any investment limits.
You have to be a UK resident aged 18 or over to open a General Investment Account. For under 18s, we offer a Junior ISA, which can only be opened by the parent or legal guardian of a child who fits the eligibility criteria.
When you’re building your Personal Investment Plan, the first question you will be asked is whether you would like to open an ISA or a regular account. Select ‘ISA’ to create an Investment ISA Plan. Under the current rules, you can only open one of each type of ISA per tax year (Investment ISA, cash ISA, Innovative ISA and Lifetime ISA), but you can split your £20,000 annual tax-efficient ISA allowance between them however you like.
If you’re likely to exceed your ISA allowance, you can simply set up a Regular Investment Plan to invest additional funds. There’s no extra cost for having two or more Plans.
The maximum you can save in an ISA is £20,000. The tax year runs from 6 April to 5 April the following year. Under the current rules, you can put the full amount in either a cash, peer to peer lending, or investment ISA, or split it between the two in any combination you like.
Nothing at all. They are just different names for tax-free investments.
Yes, you can transfer your previous years' investment ISAs, innovative finance ISAs, or cash ISAs to another investment ISA provider at any time. Transfers don't impact your current year’s ISA allowance at all, so you can still invest this tax year’s full ISA limit as well as transfer existing ISAs over.
However, always, always, always use the transfer form!! Never withdraw the money to pay in, as you'll lose your tax-efficient benefits on that money forever. To arrange a transfer, simply create a Wealthify ISA Plan, then complete our simple ISA transfer form. We’ll arrange everything else.
Yes, you can transfer your Wealthify Stocks & Shares ISA to either a Stocks & Shares ISA or a cash ISA with a different provider. If you want to transfer money you’ve invested in a Wealthify ISA in the current tax year, HMRC rules state you must transfer all of it, whereas previous years’ ISAs can be transferred in whole or in part. It’s worth checking with your new ISA provider for any restrictions or charges they may apply to transferring ISAs. Wealthify will never charge you for transferring ISAs in or out.
ISA Plans offer tax-efficient benefits compared to a Regular Investment Plan. With an ISA, you won’t pay any capital gains tax or UK income tax on your returns. The other main difference with an ISA Plan is that you can only pay in up to your annual ISA allowance each year. Regular Wealthify Plans do not limit the amount you can invest, but you will pay tax on your returns.
Yes. The fee you pay is a percentage of the combined value of all your Wealthify Plans.
Under current tax rules, you can contribute to one cash ISA and one investment ISA (aka Stocks & Shares ISAs) per tax year to take advantage of your tax-efficient savings benefits. These ISAs can be with the same, or different providers.
If you contribute to an investment ISA with Wealthify this tax year, you can’t contribute to an investment ISA with another provider this tax year, regardless of how much of your ISA allowance you have available.
However, you can create as many ISA investment plans within your Wealthify account as you like in one tax year, as long as the combined total contributions you make to these plans does not exceed £20,000. So, if you have various goals in mind, you can create different ISA pots for each one.
You can open an ISA with Wealthify if you:
Are over 18
Are UK tax resident
Have not opened an Investment ISA (other than within a Lifetime ISA) with another provider in the current tax year.
You can put up to £20,000 a year in a Cash ISA, Investment ISA, Lifetime ISA, or Innovative Finance ISA, or you can split your allowance between them. Please note, Wealthify only offers Investment ISAs.
Ethical Investing aims to exclude profiting from activities that are considered harmful to society and the environment and invest in organisations companies and projects that are committed to operating in a way that is sustainable for the future.
This is typically done by filtering out harmful activities (negative screening) and proactively seeking to invest in companies that are committed to making a positive impact through their environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices (positive screening).
Negative screening: most ethical funds will screen the so-called ‘sin stocks’ such as tobacco, gambling, weapons and adult entertainment. Other issues screened might include animal testing, intensive farming, nuclear power, genetic engineering, deforestation, and poor human or labour rights. The activities screened and the screening criteria used vary between fund providers.
Positive screening: aims to identify those companies demonstrating or showing commitment to achieve the highest standards of practise in the areas of environmental impact, social justice and corporate ethics. Only organisations that score highly across these three areas will be eligible to receive investors’ money.
Wealthify’s ethical plans combine negative screening with proactive selection based on ESG scores as well as consideration of other factors that contribute to a commitment to future sustainability.
Ethical investing is one of a number of terms used to identify sustainable approaches to investing. Others include: Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), Sustainable investing and Impact investing. Find out more about these below.
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) aims to actively identify companies to invest in that demonstrate excellent environmental, social and governance practices. Fund managers might look at a wide range of factors: how much energy a company wastes; its overall impact on the environment; what it does to champion gender and race equality; whether it gives back to its communities; whether suppliers hold similar values; how transparent it is in reporting and whether its shareholders can vote on important issues. A complex scoring system is often used to determine a company’s ESG score, which determines whether it is a suitable investment. ESG fund providers constantly monitor and review the companies they invest in using these criteria to ensure standards remain in line with the aims of the fund.
Sustainable Investing: aims to generate positive social outcomes. It’s typically a blend of ethical investing (excluding companies involved in ‘harmful’ activities) and ESG investing (identifying companies that demonstrate good behaviour). This blend of negative and positive screening aims to capture the best of both worlds and, some argue, is a more ethically sound approach.
Impact Investing: aims to achieve specific benefits, whether social or environmental, as a result of the investment, as well as a positive return. It’s generally considered as a subset of sustainable investing, but does not necessarily aim to exclude activities which can cause harm. Impact investing seeks to make a positive impact by investing, for example, in enterprises that benefit the community, or in clean technology. It might also invest in companies involved in harmful activities if they can demonstrate they are taking action to significantly reduce their reliance on it to generate profit, or even switch to more sustainable activities.
We’re using ‘best-in-class’ ethical fund providers: Edentree, Kames Capital, Legal & General, Liontrust, Royal London, UBS, Stewart Investors, iShares, and Vanguard. They have been selected for their exemplary quality of governance and ethical stance, and each employ rigorous and ongoing screening processes to ensure appropriate ethical credentials for the relevant funds.
All of the ethical fund providers we use are signatories of the Principles of Responsible Investing (PRI), the world’s leading proponent of responsible investing. The PRI is an independent body acting in the long-term interests of its signatories, of the financial markets and economies in which they operate and ultimately of the environment and society as a whole. More information: https://www.unpri.org/about-the-pri
We have a pool of up to 25 funds with which to build your ethical plan. The combination of funds we use depends on which investment style you choose and how we decide to balance your Plan. The pool of funds will also change from time to time.
We’re using active (rather than passive) ethical funds in our plans, so-called because they are ‘actively’ managed to ensure that the investments within maintain the high ethical standards required. We think this is a robust way to manage our ethical investment plans, since actively managed ethical funds can take a far more qualitative approach: using a wider set of criteria and applying a common-sense approach to selecting sustainable investments. Passive funds on the other hand use a fixed ESG score to screen companies, offering little flexibility. Passively-managed ethical funds are also unable to exert shareholder pressure on individual companies in order to drive for positive change.
Current list of funds:
Please note: the funds and fund providers we use will be reviewed and may change from time to time, which may not immediately be reflected here.
Our ethical Plans are built using a combination of mutual funds and ETFs (exchange-traded funds). The funds contain multiple investments, selected by the fund providers according to their strict ethical screening processes.
The funds will typically include:
Shares (owning a piece of a company): excluding companies that profit from ‘sin sectors’ such as gambling, tobacco, adult entertainment and weapons among others. It will only include companies that demonstrate great environmental, social and governance standards, according to the fund providers’ and Wealthify’s strict criteria and ethical investing policies.
Bonds (an IOU from a government or company with some interest): both corporate and government bonds may be included and will be subject to the same strict screening criteria as shares.
Thematic investments: one or two funds will focus on investing themes such as gender equality (companies that strongly champion these issues) or green energy and will mostly be used in higher risk plans.
Fund providers will typically exercise two levels of screening:
Negative screening: aiming to exclude companies involved in activities that are at odds with ethical and socially responsible values. This typically means ‘sin stocks’ such as gambling, tobacco, adult entertainment and weapons, although most funds screen many more activities besides.
Positive screening: actively seeking and investing in companies that demonstrate excellent environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices. More about what this means can be found in What is ESG, sustainable and Impact investing? Fund providers will employ a scoring system to each company, rating it against a set of predefined criteria, such as energy efficiency, equality agenda and the quality of its corporate governance, looking at, for example, whether it has been fined in the past for regulatory violations. These all add up to an ESG rating, which determines whether a company should be considered for investment.
Improving companies: ethical funds don’t just invest in companies with the highest ESG ratings. They will also identify and invest in ‘improving companies’ – i.e. those that show significant commitment to improving their environmental, social and governance practices. An example might be a coal company that is investing a significant part of its profits in the research and development of green energy.
Ethical fund managers will regularly search for new companies to invest in, whilst also monitoring the activities and practises of the companies already in the fund, to ensure expected standards are maintained.
As shareholders, funds can even use their influence and voting power to steer the organisation towards ever higher ethical standards, attending AGMs and lobbying the board of directors. Where the fund holds a significant shareholding (e.g. 10% or more) they may get an audience with the board of directors where they can highlight issues and help influence the strategic direction of the organisation. Ethical fund providers sometimes join forces to wield more influence over the board, if their own shareholding is too small.
If a company consistently allows its standards, and therefore its ESG rating, to slip, fund managers are able to withdraw investors’ money and remove the company from the fund.
All ethical fund providers have built a level of independent verification into their processes, usually carried out by an autonomous and impartial organisation, to ensure that no bias creeps into the fund’s screening and monitoring process.
Wealthify also has its own code of practice, set out in our ethical investing policy. Our investment team will regularly monitor the ethical funds using specialist ESG company assessments conducted by a third party, to ensure that their standards of practice are not falling below what is expected.
Each fund provider will negatively screen (i.e. exclude) companies involved in certain sectors and activities. Typically, these will be ‘sin sectors’ such as gambling, tobacco, adult entertainment and weapons. The full list of sectors considered can be much wider, as shown below.
The exclusion criteria also vary between providers: some funds will completely exclude a company profiting from harmful activities (e.g. tobacco) whilst others may invest in the company, provided it earns no more than 10% of its overall profits from the activity in question. This 10% tolerance allows a small degree of flexibility to account for instances where a company isn’t directly involved, but could be exposed to a harmful activity via, for example, a parent company or supplier. Fund managers argue that earnings of less than 10% demonstrates there’s effectively no significant involvement in that activity and an investment in the company is justifiable.
A 10% tolerance is applied to the screening of some activities by the fund providers we use. Therefore, we can never guarantee that our plans will not contain some degree of exposure to any of the harmful activities listed.
Our ethical funds aim to exclude the following, subject to an up to 10% tolerance:
Weapons; gambling; animal testing; deforestation; nuclear power; climate change; oppressive regimes; adult entertainment; tobacco; excessive political donations; human rights issues; intensive farming; unfair labour practises; genetic engineering.
Returns are not guaranteed with any form of investing and you could get back less than you put in.
With all types of investing, cost affects your performance, as the more you pay in fees and charges, the fewer returns you get to keep. The overall cost of investing in an ethical plan is higher than that of a standard plan and therefore, investing in an ethical plan may affect performance and your returns could be lower than a standard investment plan with an equivalent investment style. Ethical funds aim to avoid investing in certain sectors, like tobacco or gambling, which could also affect your plan performance.
You can get some idea of how ethical investments perform against their standard counterparts by comparing market indices like the FTSE for Good against the FTSE All Share. Of course, past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.
We’re using active (rather than passive) ethical funds in our plans which are a little more expensive [average 0.54% per year] than the passive funds we use in standard Plans [average 0.21% per year]. The extra cost reflects the fact that active funds are proactively and comprehensively managed to ensure the investments retain appropriate ethical standards. We think this is a robust way to manage our ethical investment plans, as it allows for a qualitative and common-sense approach to selecting and monitoring sustainable investments.
However, our annual management fee for ethical plans is the same as standard plans and transaction costs (also known as ‘spread costs’) will typically be lower, at an average 0.03% per year.
|
Based on a £10k investment |
Ethical plans |
|
||||
|
Cautious |
Tentative |
Confident |
Ambitious |
Adventurous |
Average |
|
|
Fund Charges |
0.42% |
0.46% |
0.52% |
0.6% |
0.69% |
0.54% |
|
Spread Costs |
0.003% |
0.02% |
0.03% |
0.04% |
0.05% |
0.03% |
|
Total cost incl. annual management Fee (0.7%) |
1.12% |
1.18% |
1.25% |
1.34% |
1.44% |
1.27% |
Costs are for illustrative purposes only.
A customer investing £10,000 into a medium risk (confident) ethical plan will pay:
The total illustrative cost of investing would therefore be 1.25% per year, based on the value of your investment.
We do have fewer types of investments at our disposal to create ethical plans, but we still use the main two types of investment – shares and bonds – as well as some thematic investments, for a bit of variety. Your plan will also hold a small amount of cash, which is common practise to enable our team to be flexible in buying investments on your behalf.
Our investment team has built a bespoke optimization process that acts to, as closely as possible, match the allocation of investments in our ethical plans to our standard plans. The tool looks at the underlying investments by region and asset type and makes sure they’re aligned as closely as possible to our standard models.
Just create your Plan in the normal way using our simple sliders, then toggle the ethical switch ‘on’. Your projected value – shown in a lovely shade of ethical green – will tell you how much your investments could potentially be worth after all fees and charges have been taken.
If you already invest with us, you’ll need to get in touch with our customer support team who can assist you further.
Vulnerability is the term given to a customer who, due to a wide range of potential personal circumstance, might find it harder to use Wealthify. Whether it’s a sudden, one-off life event like a bereavement or job loss; a long-term illness or disability; restricted technical or financial knowledge, vulnerability can affect people of all ages and backgrounds.
When getting in contact with us to discuss extra support, we appreciate you might not identify with the term vulnerable (it is a financial industry term, after all).
That’s why we pride ourselves on treating each and every customer uniquely, listening to and actioning any additional needs on an individual basis.
It doesn’t matter if a carer manages your finances, or you need accessibility help within the app; speaking to our award-winning Customer Care Team about your circumstances can help you make the most of your Wealthify experience — in a way that works for you.
Even though we’re not in position as a company to give any financial advice, there are many ways in which we can offer support, including:
Gambling – Gamblers Anonymous
Money Management – Step Change Debt Charity
Fraud – Action Fraud
Financial Abuse – Surviving Economic Abuse
Mental Health – Mental Health UK
Health – Macmillan
We want to make telling us about any extra support you might need as simple, speedy, and stress-free as possible. So, regardless of your situation, simply get in contact with our Customer Care Team by sending them a secure message, starting a Live Chat, or calling them on 0800 802 1800.
Yes, Wealthify is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
The FCA regulates the financial services industry in the UK. It has three operational objectives in support of this strategic goal: to protect consumers, to protect and enhance the integrity of the UK financial system, and to promote healthy competition between financial services providers in the interests of consumers.
Up to the first £50,000 of your money invested with Wealthify can be protected by the FSCS in the event of the insolvency of your custodian Winterflood Securities, or Wealthify.
However, it’s important to understand that the FSCS doesn't cover you in the event that your investments do not perform as expected and you get back less than you originally invested.
When you sign up for a Wealthify Plan, we will use the bank details you give us and online sources such as the electoral role and credit reference agency databases to check both your identity and address. We need to obtain this information in order to comply with UK anti-money laundering regulations.
Occasionally, we may not be able to verify your identity electronically, in which case we will get in contact with you to request additional forms of identification.
The type of identification we ask for will depend on what details we need to confirm. We will ask you to send one or more items from LIST A if we need proof of address identification, and one or more forms of ID from LIST B if we need proof of identity. Both lists are below.
Please note:
A certified copy is a photocopy or scan of your original ID, signed by a responsible third party to certify that it is a true copy – there’s a list of suitable certifiers below.
N.B. Your proof of address MUST CLEARLY show your full address to be accepted. PO Boxes WILL NOT be accepted.
DO NOT send originals of the documents in this list as we CANNOT guarantee to return them and we DO NOT accept responsibility for loss of original documents sent to us.
Please send certified copies only – i.e. a photocopy or scan of your original ID, signed by a responsible third party to certify that it is a true copy. A list of suitable certifiers can be found below.
The person who certifies the copy of your original identification must hold a position of responsibility, such as those described in the list below.
The person certifying your documents must also:
If available, they should stamp the copy with an official company stamp.
You can send your ID in the post to Wealthify, Tec Marina, Terra Nova Way, Penarth, CF64 1SA.
It’s up to you. You should not send any original ID to us, as we cannot take any responsibility for it being returned safely to you, this makes it less necessary to use registered post, however you can if you wish.
No, we don’t run a formal credit check. We use the credit reference agencies to verify your details and this leaves a footprint on your profile, but it doesn’t affect your credit rating in the same way as a credit check.
Our aim is to provide you with an excellent service at all times. If you are unhappy with our service and wish to make a complaint, you can contact us via our website, call us on 0800 802 1800, or write to us at: Wealthify, Tec Marina, Terra Nova Way, Penarth, CF64 1SA.
We will acknowledge your complaint within five working days, then investigate the circumstances and report the results back to you in due course.
If you feel that we are not dealing with your complaint satisfactorily, you can refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Their address is Exchange Tower, London E14 9SR.
Our complaints policy is here.
Our Terms and Conditions are available to download and read. You will be asked to read and accept them when you sign up, and you can find a link to them from the footer of our website.
You can find all of Winterflood Securities Limited policies by clicking on the links below:
New legislation called MIFID II is coming into effect on 3 January 2018. As a result, we require you to advise us of your nationality. If you are a non-UK national or have multiple nationality you will need to provide your National Client Identifier (NCI).
It's an EU regulation that attempts to harmonise investment services across its member states.
If you do not provide your nationality details, we will not be able to buy and sell exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on your behalf, and this could impact on the performance of your Wealthify Investment Plan.
The new rules require us to share your name, date of birth, nationality and National Client Identifier (NCI) with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for every ETF trade we place on your behalf.
In February 2018, Wealthify entered into a strategic partnership with Aviva, the UK’s largest insurance provider and a global financial services company, which included Aviva taking a majority stake in the business.
This is great news for Wealthify customers. With Aviva’s backing we’ll be able to accelerate our ambitious growth plans and bring you a host of new features and products, so watch this space!
Our investment team will continue to manage your investments independently of Aviva. We do not currently use Aviva funds in our investment Plans, and there is no obligation for us to do so in the future.
Wealthify remains fully authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and our customers’ money can be covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) up to £50,000.
We’re based in Cardiff, in South Wales. Wealthify is a UK limited company registered in England and Wales (No. 09034828). Our registered office is Tec Marina, Terra Nova Way, Cardiff, CF64 1SA. We are fully authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (No. 662530).
Your money is looked after by a team of qualified investment managers with experience in established UK firms like Brooks Macdonald, Man Group Plc and RAW Capital Partners in Guernsey. Our experts have developed an investment system that uses algorithms to pick the best funds available to you, then builds you an investment plan that suits your goals and attitude to risk. And because things are always changing in the financial markets, our team monitors and adjusts your plan regularly, to make sure your money is always invested in the best places.
No. We are not regulated to give you advice on whether investing is right for you. If you’re unsure, you should always seek the advice of an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA).
No, that’s what we’re here for. We build your investment plan based on what you tell us about your attitude to risk with money, how much you have to invest, and by when you hope to reach your savings goals. Then we monitor your investments to make sure they’re on track.
We think everyone should have access to investing, to help their money grow. That’s why you can get started from just £1. It’s flexible too, so you can make additional one-off or regular monthly payments, or withdraw your money whenever you like.
No, not at all. Although you should always approach investing as a long-term way to grow your money, you can withdraw your money from Wealthify at any time, if you need to and there’s no charge or penalty for withdrawing. It will take up to 10 working days for us to release the money from your investments – it could be quicker, but we can’t promise.
Yes, you’ll have 24-hour, year-round online access to your investments on PC, tablet or your phone. You can view and edit your Wealthify plans and add or withdraw funds in just a few clicks. Your Plan detail page shows you the lifetime performance of your plan, the assets you hold and your full transaction history, including monthly fee payments. It’s good to check in from time to time, but remember, investing is a long-term savings strategy.
Of course! You can make regular payments from just £1 per month by setting up a standing order, or make manual payments as many times as you like each month, whenever you can afford it.
An ISA is an easy way for UK residents to save and invest tax-efficiently. It’s a wrapper you put around your money to protect it from the tax man. You can currently invest up to £20,000 tax-efficiently in an ISA in each tax year in a cash ISA, Lifetime ISA, Innovative Finance ISA or investment ISA, or you can split the allowance between them. Please note, Wealthify only offers investment ISAs.
Yes, all investing carries an element of risk, but Wealthify lets you choose the level of risk you’re comfortable to take. Our five-point scale lets you choose from a 'cautious' (low-risk) approach, to a more 'adventurous' (high-risk) approach. We also build you a diversified investment plan, meaning we don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Instead, we spread your investments (eggs) out across a number of different assets and markets (baskets). That way, you’re not relying on one particular ‘basket’ to get a return on your investment. Spreading (or diversifying) your risk is generally accepted as the most sensible way to invest, but it’s still never risk-free.
When you build your Wealthify Plan, we give you a ‘predicted value’, which is an indication of what your money could be worth at the end of the time period you select. To calculate this figure, we use ARC benchmark data, an industry-standard measure that gives us information on the past performance of hundreds of comparable private investment plans. We use this data to help predict the most likely future value of your investments. Naturally, figures are not guaranteed and predictions are never perfect, but it will give you a good idea of what your investment could be worth.
Winterflood Securities Limited act as your custodian. This means they are responsible for holding your cash and investments safely. They are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and are part of Close Brothers Group, who have been trading for more than 130 years. They hold your cash and investments separately from their own (ring fenced) in accordance with the FCA’s client asset rules.
Yes. We believe we now offer the best-value investment plans for smaller investors, because even if you only invest a small amount, you get lots of investments from markets around the globe, meaning your risk is spread as thinly as possible (which is known as diversification!)
Customers investing smaller amounts of below £2000 get a plan containing around 15 funds, made up of approximately 6500 investments in total. We use mutual funds for these Plans, because they can be broken up into smaller pieces, which is ideal for lower-value plans because it means we can buy you more of them. Plans of more than £2000 will contain up to 20 funds, including some more expensive funds known as Exchange-traded Funds (ETFs). These Plans will contain around 8000 investments in total. Lower value Plans may hold a larger proportion of cash than higher value plans, but will still contain as many as 15 funds.
All this means that every Wealthify Plan, no matter what its value, will contain an appropriate level of diversity for your investment style, so it doesn’t matter whether you start investing with £1, or £1,000,000, you’ll have a Plan that suits you. If you have a particular investment goal, you can see how much you need to invest and how much you could add each month to reach your target, on our create a plan page.
A Junior ISA is a tax-efficient way to save and invest on behalf of your child.
Payments into a Junior ISA are different from adult ISAs, because the money you put in belongs to your child. Once you put money in, you can’t take it out again, except in exceptional circumstances, and your child can only get access to their money when they turn 18.
There are two types of Junior ISA:
Your child can have one or both types of Junior ISA and you can deposit up to the annual limit of £4,260 into them in any combination you like.
For example, you could pay £2,000 into a Junior Cash ISA and up to £2,260 into a Junior Stocks and Shares ISA, or vice versa. You can split the allowance however you want to between the two accounts.
The benefit of a Junior ISA is that you or your child won’t pay tax on any interest, returns or dividends they receive.
Wealthify only offers a Junior Stocks and Shares ISA. Any money paid into a Junior ISA will belong to the child, but they cannot access it until their 18th birthday.
Junior ISAs allow your child to keep more of their money by protecting any positive returns they receive from income tax and capital gains tax.
Only a child’s parent or legal guardian can open a Junior ISA account on their behalf.
Your child can have one Junior Cash ISA and/or a Junior Stocks and Shares ISA at any time, into which you can currently contribute a maximum of £4,260 per tax year, per eligible child. You can split the amount however you choose between a Junior Cash ISA and a Junior Stocks and Shares ISA as long as the combined amount doesn’t exceed the annual limit.
You don’t need to use the same provider for your child’s Junior Cash ISA and Junior Stocks and Shares ISA, so you’ve got flexibility to choose the best option for you and your child.
At the start of each new tax year, on 6 April, the child’s annual Junior ISA allowance re-sets and you can start another year of tax-efficient saving, up to £4,260 for each child.
Your child will only be able to access the money within their Junior ISA when they turn 18.
When they turn 18, the Junior ISA is automatically changed into an adult ISA. At this point, they can choose to keep saving or investing, or they can withdraw some or all of the balance to help pay for things like university, or a new car.
If you want to build an investment pot for your child that neither you or they can touch until your child turns 18, then a Junior ISA could be the answer. Any money paid into a Junior ISA belongs to the child and cannot be withdrawn by anyone other than the child when they turn 18.
Junior ISAs are available to children who:
You can transfer your Child Trust Fund over to a Wealthify Junior ISA, but your child cannot have a CTF and a Junior ISA at the same time. When transferring a CTF to a Junior ISA, the full balance must be transferred.
Junior ISAs can only be opened by the parent or legal guardian of a child under the age of 18 who fits the eligibility criteria. Once opened the parent/guardian will become the registered contact for the account.
As the registered contact for a Junior ISA, you are the only person authorised to make decisions about the management of the account. You’ll also need to keep Wealthify informed if the child’s personal details change; e.g. if they change their name, address, contact number, or get married.
When the child turns 18, they will become the registered contact and their Wealthify Junior ISA will change into an adult ISA. They can either keep investing, move it somewhere else, or withdraw some or all of it e.g. to help pay for university, or a car.
The money in a Junior ISA will never belong to the parent/guardian. It belongs to the child, but they won’t be able to access it until their 18th birthday.
16-year olds can open and start paying into an adult Cash ISA whilst still paying into their own Junior ISA until they reach 18.
No – the Junior ISA can only be opened and funded after the child is born. We need the child’s date of birth so that we will know when your child turns 18.
Wealthify offers Junior Stocks & Shares ISAs.
Wealthify Junior ISAs contain a range of investments from across the globe matched to the level of risk you choose. Our team of experts build your child’s Junior ISA, choosing which investments to buy and managing them on your behalf.
You can choose to invest for you child in an Ethical Plan or an Original Plan. Read more about our Ethical Plans here.
Each Junior Stocks & Shares ISA will contain up to 20 investment funds from providers like Blackrock and Vanguard. Investment funds are a convenient and cost-effective way to invest, as they contain hundreds or even thousands of expertly-selected shares, bonds and other investment types. This means your Junior ISA will contain a diverse range of investments spread across global markets and regions, helping your child to spread their risk.
The Junior ISA allowance for the 2018/19 tax year is £4,260.
The limit increases to £4,368 for the 2019/20 tax year.
A child can have one Junior Cash ISA and one Junior Stocks & Shares ISA. The annual allowance of £4,260 can be split between accounts any way you like, but the total payments made into both must not exceed this amount in any given tax year.
The two Junior ISAs don’t have to be with the same provider, so you can choose the best option for you and your child. Wealthify does not currently offer a Junior Cash ISA, but we may do in the future, so watch this space.
If your child already has a Child Trust Fund in their name, it would need to be transferred to us in order to open a Junior ISA with Wealthify. You can transfer a Child Trust Fund into a Wealthify Junior Stocks and Shares ISA using the official transfer process.
No – you can hold a Junior Cash ISA with one provider and a Junior Stocks & Shares ISA with a different provider.
The parent or legal guardian opening the account will be the registered contact, but the money will not be accessible to them and will always belong to the child. The child won’t be able to access the money until their 18th birthday.
As the registered contact for a Junior ISA, you are the only person authorised to make decisions about the management of the account. You’ll also need to keep Wealthify informed if the child’s personal details change; e.g. if they change their name, address, contact number, or get married.
When the child turns 18, they become the registered contact and their Wealthify Junior ISA is rolled into an adult Stocks & Shares ISA. They can either keep investing, move it somewhere else, or withdraw some or all of it e.g. to help pay for university or a car.
Payments made into a Wealthify Junior ISA must come from the registered bank account of the parent or legal guardian who opened the Junior ISA.
Friends and family members are currently unable to gift money directly to a child’s Wealthify Junior ISA, but it can be paid in via their parent or legal guardian.
Gifting can be a great way to help boost the value of a child’s Junior ISA but remember that total payments should not exceed the child’s annual allowance.
Money added to a Junior ISA belongs to the child. The parent or guardian who opened the Junior ISA acts as the registered contact, but they can’t access the money once it has been deposited, unless there are exceptional circumstances. When the child turns 18, account ownership is transferred to them.
If you’d like to make regular, monthly payments to a Wealthify Junior ISA, you can set up a Direct Debit.
You can top up your child’s Junior ISA whenever you like by making a one-off Direct Debit or a bank transfer. For example, when your child receives money as a birthday or Christmas gift. Just sign in to your Wealthify account and visit your dashboard, then click on the ‘top up’ link next to your Junior ISA account.
No matter how the contribution is made, it MUST come from the bank account that was used to open your Wealthify account.
We don’t currently accept card payments.
Wealthify is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Your money is looked after by our team of experienced and qualified investment managers, and we’re backed by global financial services provider, Aviva.
Your child’s money is held securely by our custodian, Winterflood Securities Limited. They are responsible for holding your cash and investments safely. They are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and are part of Close Brothers Group, who have been trading for more than 130 years. They hold your child’s cash and investments separately from Wealthify (ringfenced) in accordance with the FCA’s client asset rules.
As an authorised firm, Winterflood Securities Ltd. is also a member of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). This means your child’s investments may be protected up to £50,000.
It’s important to remember that the value of your investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you invested. The FSCS scheme does not allow you to claim compensation simply because the value of your child’s account falls below what you originally invested.
Yes, there are some taxes that are applicable to children if they earn income or returns from investments over a certain threshold.
Most children are subject to income tax if they earn over £17,850 per year.
Their tax-free allowance of £17,850 is broken into three areas:
They may also have to pay capital gains tax if they earned more than £11,700 in returns from their investments.
If a child earns more than £100 in interest from money given to them by a parent, it should be declared to HMRC, as the parent would then need to pay tax on any interest earned over £100. This does not apply to money given by grandparents, friends or relatives, or to money paid in to a Junior ISA.
A Junior ISA allows you to save or invest £4,260 per year on behalf of your child without paying tax on any interest, dividends or capital gains they earn.
Saving into a Junior ISA on behalf of your children does not affect your own annual ISA allowance, currently £20,000, as the money will belong to the child.
Yes, you can easily transfer your child’s existing Junior ISA to Wealthify by completing our Junior ISA transfer request form. We’ll send you the transfer forms to complete and return to us, then we’ll contact your existing provider to arrange everything.
Please remember, if you’re transferring a Junior Cash ISA to Wealthify, it will become a Junior Stocks and Shares ISA. Your child’s money will be invested in global financial markets and the value of your investments can go down as well as up.
Yes, but you must transfer the whole balance of your Child’s Trust Fund (CTF) as you cannot have a CTF and a Junior ISA open at the same time.
When you transfer the full balance of a Child Trust Fund over to a Junior ISA, it doesn’t count towards your child’s current Junior ISA allowance, so you can transfer the whole CTF balance and still save up to £4,260 for them in the same tax year.
You can find more information on Child Trust Funds on the government’s HMRC website.
There's no direct transfer process available. If you want to move some money from your ISA to your child's JISA you would need to withdraw your ISA funds, deposit them into your registered bank account and then pay it into your child’s JISA.
As soon as the money is received in the Junior ISA, it will belong to the child and you will no longer have access to it, so bear this in mind if you’re thinking about transferring from your own personal ISA or savings account.
Child Trust Funds (CTFs) were introduced in January 2005 to allow parents and families to put money aside for children into an account which they could only access when they turned 18.
CTFs were a long-term savings or investment account for all children born in the UK between 1st September 2002 and 2nd January 2011. So, if your child was born between these dates, they probably have one.
Junior ISAs replaced Child Trust Funds in 2011.
You can transfer Child Trust Funds to Wealthify, at which point they will become a Junior Stocks and Shares ISA.
You can find more information on Child Trust Funds on the government’s HMRC website.
Yes. We’ll be sad to see you go, obviously, but if you choose to transfer your Junior ISA to another provider you can by using their official Junior ISA transfer form.
No, this service won't cost you a penny. We wanted to make it easy and affordable for your friends and family to add to your child's Junior ISA, so there are no extra charges or costs for this service.
You’ll need to log in to your Wealthify account and invite them – the invite will include all the details they need to know in order to get started. They’ll then need to sign up and create a Wealthify contributor account (they can skip the signing up bit if they already invest with us!)
From their Wealthify dashboard, they’ll be able to verify their identity either through a text message we’ll send them or a PIN code you provide. Once they’ve completed verification, they’ll be able to add to your child’s Junior ISA.
If they’re new to Wealthify then they’ll need to set up their bank details to get started, but this will be saved for future contributions.
Yes! By taking the steps for verification and creating separate contributor accounts, we've made sure that your Junior ISA Plans are still safe and secure.
Your contributors will only be able to see how much they’ve added, and the amount left in the Junior ISA's tax allowance for that year. They’ll also be able to see any messages they’ve sent with their contributions.
We all like to add a note when you give a gift, so anytime your contributors add to your child’s ISA they’ll have the option of attaching a message for the parent and child to read!
Money is a pretty sensitive subject, so we don’t want to show them what you or other contributors have added. This way, they’ll easily be able to see how much they’ve added to your child’s future while keeping everyone else’s information private.
For more information read our Privacy policy.
Yes, you can invite anyone to be a contributor. That could be your parents, siblings, cousins, friends, neighbours… the list goes on. Once they’ve accepted the invite, and passed verification, they’ll be able to add to your child’s ISA whenever they want.
The only caveat to this is that they’ll need to live in the UK and be a UK tax resident, aged over 18.
Withdrawals will typically take up to 10 working days. This is because your money is invested in stock markets and we need to sell your investments first before we can send you your money. It might be quicker than 10 days, but we can’t promise.
Yes, the value of any withdrawal you make must be at least £1.00.
You’ll need to close your Plan if you’d like to withdraw your full balance.
Yes, to keep a Plan open it will need to have a balance of at least £1.00.
You’ll need to close your Plan if you’d like to withdraw your full balance.
The amount displayed on your dashboard is an indicative amount only.
Investment price fluctuations mean that the value of your investments may change between the time that you place your request and the time that we sell. This means that you could get back less than what was showing in your Plan.
If you request a partial withdrawal, we’ll sell as many of your investments required to get as close to the amount you request.
In the rare event that we cannot sell down your investments straight away, we’ll send you what we can, with the rest to follow when the remaining sale(s) can be completed.
Yes, you can withdraw money from your Wealthify ISA in the same way as a general investment account but anything you withdraw will still count towards your £20,000 allowance and can’t be replaced.
For example: If you invested the full £20,000 limit into your ISA and then withdrew £1,000, you wouldn’t be able to pay money into your ISA until the beginning of the following tax year, because you would have already used up your allocated ISA allowance.
But, if you’ve only paid in £10,000 and withdrew £5,000, you’d still be able to pay in an additional £10,000 and make full use of your remaining ISA allowance.
Our savings calculator uses a bit of clever maths and our investment team’s forecasting to give you an idea of what your money could be worth at a point in the future. We do make a few assumptions when it comes to working these things out – namely, that you’re not withdrawing money from either your savings or investments, and that any returns are put back in as well.
With your savings, it’s simple, we look at how much you already have saved, how much you plan on saving and then calculate that against how long you’re looking to save for and factor in your current savings rate. This will give you an idea of what your money might look like in a savings account.
When investing, the calculation is similar, although instead of factoring in your savings rate, we use our investment team’s forecasting tools. These are only projected values and could change due to different market conditions, but it can give you an idea of the potential you might see when investing.
We’ll regularly update the average high street savings rate, however what you get may be higher or lower than this so feel free to add your own. You can normally find your current savings rate by logging into your account with online banking provider, choosing your savings account and finding your interest rate. This should also appear on your statements.
When you save money, your savings provider typically pays you for putting money away – this is called interest and is generally presented as a percentage. The rate they pay is guided by the central bank – in the UK this is the Bank of England – and depends on a huge range of factors. ‘Low’ is subjective, as it’s typically based off a historic average – so if the interest rate was 2% for 10 years but then dropped to 1%, then that is considered to be a ‘low interest rate.’
We aim to provide you with the best possible service at all times, but we understand that sometimes customers might feel disappointed. You can let us know about your complaint by sending us a message from your Wealthify account, via our instant live chat, calling our team on 0800 802 1800 or by writing to us at Wealthify, Tec Marina, Terra Nova Way, Penarth, CF64 1SA.
We’ll deal with your complaint as fairly and quickly as we can and in accordance with our regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority’s requirements.
If you aren’t happy with the way we’ve dealt with your case, you may be able to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service which is an independent public body established by Government (but remember that the Ombudsman won’t look at a complaint until it has been raised with us and we’ve had reasonable time to investigate and respond).
Our complaints policy is here.
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How long will my pension transfer take
You can access your pension when you turn 55 (rising to 57 in 2028). Subject to current pension rules, you'll be able to withdraw 25% of the total amount tax-free, with the rest being taxed based on your individual circumstances. However, you don’t have to take any of your pension if you don’t want to. If you’re still working, for example, you can leave the money in your pension – and continue to contribute – until you retire.
The way you take your money out of your pension (a process known as moving your pension into drawdown), will vary depending on the type of pension you have.
If you have a defined benefit pension, you will receive a specific income for life, which should increase every year. If you have a defined contribution scheme, then you’ll be able to choose how you want to withdraw your funds using one of the following methods:
Wealthify doesn’t offer a pension tracing service.
However, if you're looking to transfer your pension to us, we will need to know who your pension is with and a reference number.
Normally, pension providers will issue you an annual statement that comes through the post — even if it's a lost pension you no longer pay into.
Your policy number should be included in the letter. If you know the pension provider but can’t find a statement, you may still be able to find your pension by contacting the provider.
In the case of a workplace pension (a pension set up by your employer), if you don’t know who the provider is, then your first port of call should be contacting your employer.
If you need help finding a lost workplace or personal pension, please visit the Pension Tracing Service, which is a free, government-run service.