Frequently Asked Questions

Can I choose my own investments?

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.

What's passive investing?

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.

What’s in my investment plan?

Our experts use a range of passive investment funds, like Mutual Funds and ETFs to build your plan. An investment fund is a bundle of lots of individual assets, like stocks, bonds or property, which you buy all in one go, making funds a cost-effective way to invest.

The mix of funds and investments in your Plan will depend on your attitude to risk. Low risk Plans will contain a higher percentage of low-risk investments like bonds. Higher-risk Plans will include more shares. Since financial markets are always changing, we’ll make adjustments to the mix of investments in your Plan from time to time.

We’ve created five investment Plans – from Cautious to Adventurous – so you can choose a level of risk that’s right for you. Find out more about what’s in each of these Plans by downloading the Plan Factsheets below.