Wealthify Encourage People to Invest by Slashing Minimum Investment to £1

Online investment service advances mission to democratise markets through a raft changes that enhance transparency and accessibility

Wealthify has today announced it has reduced its minimum investment from £250 to just £1 to encourage even more savers to switch from dire cash savings rates and try investing.

Wealthify is now offering a fully-diversified, managed investment portfolio to any individual, regardless of whether they invest £1 or a £1,000,000. Customers investing smaller amounts below £2000 get a plan containing around 15 passive mutual funds made up of approximately 6500 globally-diverse underlying investments. Plans in excess of £2000 will contain up to 20 funds, including ETFs, and around 8000 underlying investments.

The move means anyone looking to try investing can do so with a small amount, whilst getting access to a risk-balanced plan. Wealthify’s management fees and fund charges will remain among the lowest in the market for plans under £15k, with customers paying just 0.7% per year on management fees and 0.17% a year in fund charges.

Alongside removing the minimum investment barrier, Wealthify has made a raft of other changes to improve transparency and accessibility for all investors, differentiating it from other online investment services by being squarely focussed on democratising investing by opening it up to the mass market. These include:

– Fee transparency: Wealthify has made fund charges far 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. Crucially, fees are expressed in both percentage and monetary value terms – a key recommendation of the recent FCA/FSCP report carried out by Boring Money. These changes will ensure inexperienced investors are clear on fees and make Wealthify the leader in fee transparency in the online investment market.

– Access via an app: Wealthify has launched an iOS and Android app which includes enhanced security features, like fingerprint ID and a host of features that further improve accessibility such as the ability to monitor, top up and withdraw their investments 24/7 wherever they are at the touch of a button.

– Extending lowest fee band: Wealthify will also extend its cheapest fee band (0.5%) to investors with plans of £50,000 or above. This means Wealthify will offer the best-value fully-managed diversified portfolio for plans up to £100,000. 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% growth for customers on the highest risk plans.

Richard Theo, CEO of Wealthify commented: “These changes are important steps towards our mission to democratise investing and represent 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 £9bn 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.”