Online investment service Wealthify has reduced its minimum investment from GBP250 to just GBP1 to encourage more savers to switch from cash savings rates and try investing.
Wealthify is offering a fully-diversified, managed investment portfolio to any individual, regardless of whether they invest GBP1 or GBP1 million.
Customers investing amounts below GBP2,000 get a plan containing around 15 passive mutual funds made up of approximately 6,500 globally-diverse underlying investments.
Plans in excess of GBP2,000 will contain up to 20 funds, including ETFs, and around 8,000 underlying investments.
Wealthify’s management fees and fund charges will remain among the lowest in the market for plans under GBP15,000, with customers paying just 0.7 per cent per year on management fees and 0.17 per cent per year in fund charges.
Alongside removing the minimum investment barrier, Wealthify has made a raft of other changes to improve transparency and accessibility for investors.
Wealthify has made fund charges clearer; they are highlighted prominently on the fees page and have been added to the fee calculator tool. Fees also appear on the plan summary page seen by customers before they sign up. They are expressed in both percentage and monetary value terms – a key recommendation of the recent FCA/FSCP report carried out by Boring Money.
Wealthify has launched an iOS and Android app which includes enhanced security features, like fingerprint ID, and a host of features that further improves customer accessibility such as the ability to monitor, top up and withdraw investments 24/7 wherever they are at the touch of a button.
Wealthify will also extend its cheapest fee band (0.5 per cent) to investors with plans of GBP50,000 or above. This means Wealthify will offer the best-value fully-managed diversified portfolio for plans up to GBP100,000. Fees can further be reduced if investors use Wealthify’s Circles programme.
These enhancements follow the announcement of Wealthify’s 12 months’ performance results, which saw benchmark-beating growth across all investment plans, achieving up to 28.5 per cent growth for customers on the highest risk plans.
Richard Theo, CEO of Wealthify, says: “These changes are important steps towards our mission to democratise investing and demonstrate a genuine desire to be the most accessible, most transparent and most straightforward online investing service available. With cash savings earning next to nothing and rising inflation wiping off up to GBP9bn per year from UK cash savings accounts, now is the time for everyone, no matter what their level of knowledge or confidence in investing, to look for alternative ways to grow their money. Our mission and today’s changes means that everyone, no matter how much or little experience or money they have, has the option to give investing a try.”
