How we got started
Would you pay for service you didn’t want?
If you owned investments before 2013 with Fidelity, Invesco, Jupiter, M&G, or dozens more, you had no choice….
If you used a financial adviser, investment broker or invested directly, you almost always paid 0.5% a year (commission) for service – even if you didn’t want it.
0.5% doesn’t sound much, does it? But it adds up over the years. Thousands of pounds for an average investor and hundreds of millions of pounds for the investment industry.
We saw an opportunity to to give savvy investors a choice; cashback (a share of the 0.5% commission) or service. Something nobody else had thought to do.
We don’t share commission anymore because rules changed. But we offer service and guidance for a fee that’s the same as the share of commission we used to keep.
Family values
We’re a family-owned business with 8 staff. We may be small, but we’ve helped more than 40,000 people with their investments over the past 20 years.
We try hard to keep our customers and staff happy because we only make money if people stay with us for years.
Loyal customers, loyal staff
In fact, 1,790 customers who joined us in 1999 – our first year – are still customers today. (A loyalty rate of 93.5% a year.)
As for staff, we’ve all worked here more than 5 years, and 6 out of 8 of us more than a decade.
We’re on your side
Most investment companies are in business to sell their own products or investment funds.
A gentle word of warning: take what they say with a pinch of salt!
We don’t have our own products or investment funds. And we’re not paid by anyone to sell theirs.
Which means we’re free to help you make informed choices from thousands of options.
Value for money
Our service fee is an all-inclusive 0.24% a year, based on the value of your investments (£24 a year for £10,000), plus product and fund charges. We don’t charge initial fees, or any other fees.
This saves you more than 75% compared to a typical advised service. Financial advisers usually charge an up-front fee of £1,000 or more, plus 1% a year based on the value of your investments (£100 a year for £10,000) – often higher product and fund charges too.
(But you should seek a suitably qualified professional if you have complex financial needs or lack confidence to make your own choices with our help.)
Of course you might pay less if you deal directly with investment companies. But it may be false economy.
Why? Because it’s easy to make costly mistakes. You face a deluge of information and misinformation from people trying to influence what to do with your money. It’s not worth the risk, don’t you agree?
You’re in safe hands
We’re authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Our FCA reference is 187989 if you want to check the FCA Register.
We only arrange investments regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
And all investments we arrange are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
You never pay investment money to us. You always pay investment companies and they always pay you.
Anything else, please ask
We hope you decide to use our investment service.
If there’s anything investment related you want help with, or any questions you want answered, please contact us.
Our friendly, knowledgeable people Alan, Angie, Laura, Sarah and Tania are here to help.
