Wealthify

Wealthify is an online investment platform that builds and manages investment Plans for people who do not want to pick their own funds. You can start investing with as little as £1¹. Its products sit in three broad areas: ISAs, including a Stocks and Shares ISA for adults and a Stocks and Shares Junior ISA for children; pensions; and general investment Plans, which are taxable investment accounts with no ISA or pension wrapper¹.

The idea behind Wealthify is simplicity. Rather than choosing from thousands of funds, you pick a risk style and Wealthify does the rest, holding a mix of investments it adjusts over time. You can start investing from as little as £1². Its help and support pages are hosted on Aviva's website, and if you have a financial adviser, Wealthify asks you to contact that adviser first before talking about or changing a policy³.

What Wealthify offers: ISAs and investment Plans

Wealthify's range covers the three main ways an ordinary person invests: inside an ISA wrapper, inside a pension wrapper, or in a general investment account with no wrapper at all.

Stocks and Shares ISA. An ISA is a tax-efficient wrapper, and there are four types of ISA available in the UK: cash ISAs, stocks and shares ISAs, innovative finance ISAs and lifetime ISAs⁵. Wealthify's ISA is a stocks and shares ISA, which means the money inside it is invested in funds rather than held as savings. To open one you need to be 18 or over and a UK tax resident². The value can go down as well as up, as with any invested money. You can read more about how these accounts work in our guide to ISAs.

Junior ISA. Wealthify offers a Stocks and Shares Junior ISA (JISA) for children¹. A parent or guardian opens and manages it, and the child gains access to the money when they turn 18. You can also move an existing Child Trust Fund, or transfer a Junior ISA from another provider, into a Wealthify Junior ISA¹. There are no charges to make withdrawals or transfers, and no fees to close a Wealthify JISA¹. Grandparents are able to open and contribute to a child's investment account, though they need to nominate someone to look after it¹.

Pensions. Wealthify also offers personal pension Plans. A personal pension is a long-term investment wrapper with tax relief on contributions and rules about when you can access the money. Some workplace pensions operate as "master trusts", multi-employer schemes run by a professional trustee company⁶, but a personal pension with a platform like Wealthify is a contract between you and the provider instead. Our pensions guide explains the difference between workplace and personal pensions and what each offers.

General investment Plans. A general investment account has no tax wrapper, so returns fall under normal tax rules, but there are no contribution limits or rules about when you can take money out. Wealthify's general Plans work the same way as its ISA and pension Plans: you choose a risk style and it manages the mix. For how investing works generally, see our investing guide.

Investment styles: from cautious to adventurous

Wealthify Plans come in five investment styles, running from Cautious at one end to Adventurous at the other, with ethical versions available for people who want their money to avoid certain sectors. The style you choose determines the mix of investments Wealthify holds: a Cautious Plan leans towards assets that historically move less sharply, while an Adventurous Plan takes on more movement in exchange for higher potential growth. This risk-style approach is common across the market; Scottish Widows, for example, offers ready-made investments in Cautious, Balanced or Adventurous styles⁷.

The important thing to understand is what a risk style does and does not change:

• It changes the blend of investments held in your Plan, and how much the Plan's value is likely to move up and down.
• It does not change the charges structure, the tax wrapper, or the fact that any invested money can fall in value as well as rise.

A Cautious Plan reduces the size of the swings but cannot remove them.

Ethical Plans work in the same way but screen out investments that do not meet the ethical criteria, so the underlying mix differs even at the same risk level. If you are unsure which style suits your circumstances, that is a question for a financial adviser rather than something a platform can decide for you.

How Wealthify's charges work

Wealthify charges an annual management fee on your Plan, plus the underlying costs of the funds it holds. The annual fee is 0.6% on Plan values up to £100,000, and 0.3% on the portion beyond that¹. Fees are quoted annually but charged monthly, calculated as 1/12 of the annual fee². There are no charges for deposits, withdrawals, transfers or Plan closures³.

Two things are worth understanding about how platform charges work in general. First, the annual management fee is a percentage of the value of your Plan, so the amount you pay in pounds rises and falls with the value of your investments. Second, the funds inside your Plan carry their own costs, which come off the fund value rather than appearing as a separate bill. The total cost of investing is therefore the platform fee plus the fund costs combined.

On the Junior ISA specifically, Wealthify states there are no charges to make withdrawals or transfers, and no fees to close the account¹. That matters because exit fees are one of the ways moving between platforms can cost money, and a provider that waives them makes it cheaper to leave if you want to.

Who can open a Wealthify account

The basic eligibility rules Wealthify states are straightforward:

• Stocks and Shares ISA: you must be 18 or over and a UK tax resident².
• Junior ISA: opened by a parent or guardian for a child; grandparents can open and contribute provided they nominate someone to look after the account¹.
• General investment Plans and pensions: held in one name, with no joint option.

Residency matters more with investments than with bank accounts, because tax wrappers depend on where you are tax resident. If you move abroad, your UK tax residency ends and that can affect your ability to keep paying into an ISA. As general guidance on holding UK accounts from overseas, it makes sense to keep a UK account open only if you still have income or financial ties in the UK, such as a salary, rental income, a pension, payments or bills⁸.

Wealthify does not offer joint accounts. Joint accounts are a feature of bank and savings accounts, where two people hold the same money together and both can manage it⁹. Investment Plans are held in one name, so a couple wanting to invest together would each open their own Plan.

Opening a Plan and paying money in

Opening a Wealthify Plan is done online. The process runs in a few steps:

1. Choose the product type: ISA, Junior ISA, pension or general investment Plan.
2. Pick your investment style, from Cautious to Adventurous, with an ethical option.
3. Pay money in, from as little as £1², then add one-off or regular contributions as you wish.

If you already hold ISAs elsewhere, you can bring them with you. You can transfer an existing Junior ISA, or a Child Trust Fund, into a Wealthify Junior ISA¹. ISA transfers are a standard process across the market: providers including Fidelity accept transfers in of existing cash ISAs and stocks and shares ISAs¹⁰, and transferring does not use up your current year's ISA allowance, so you keep the tax-free benefits of money you have already saved¹⁰.

The golden rule is to transfer, not withdraw. If you take the money out of an ISA yourself and then pay it into a new one, it may lose its tax-free status and count against your annual allowance. Using the provider's transfer process moves the money between ISAs without that happening.

Withdrawals and transfers: how long they take

Withdrawing money from an investment Plan takes longer than from a bank account, because investments usually have to be sold before cash can be paid to you. The timescales vary by provider and give a sense of what is normal in the market: Vanguard states that when you withdraw cash it can take 1 to 3 business days for it to be paid into your bank account, or 5 days or more if funds must be sold first, and where Vanguard chooses and manages your investments the whole process of selling funds and proceeds clearing usually takes 7 to 12 working days depending on the fund's settlement period¹¹. Wealthify does not publish a comparable figure in the material here, so check its support pages for its current timescales before planning a withdrawal around a deadline.

ISA transfers between providers also take time, because investments must be re-registered or sold and repurchased. Fidelity states its transfers usually take 6 to 8 weeks, though they can complete faster¹⁰. If you are transferring a pension, the timescale depends on the type of scheme you are transferring from and whether any guarantees or exit charges apply.

On the Junior ISA, Wealthify states there are no charges to make withdrawals or transfers, and no fees to close the account¹. Note that Junior ISA money belongs to the child and is normally locked in until they turn 18, so "withdrawals" here covers the mechanics rather than early access for parents.

Managing your investments: app, online and customer support

Wealthify is an online platform, so day-to-day management happens through its website and app: you can check your Plan's value, see performance, change your risk style, and pay money in or withdraw. This app-based model is now standard across the investment platform market; J.P. Morgan's Personal Investing service, for example, lets customers create, edit and manage investment pots through the Chase app alongside their everyday banking¹².

Wealthify's help and support content is hosted on Aviva's website, covering its investment products³. One rule is worth knowing if you came to Wealthify through an adviser: if you have a financial adviser and want to talk about or change your policy, Wealthify asks you to contact them first³. Calls to 0800 numbers from UK landlines and mobiles are free³, so an 0800 contact route costs nothing from a UK phone.

Wealthify does not give financial advice. It provides information about its own products, but deciding whether investing suits your circumstances, and at what risk level, is your decision or one you make with an adviser. A financial adviser may charge a fee for the advice they give. Free, impartial guidance is also available: MoneyHelper offers free help with money questions, and impartial guidance services do not recommend particular products or providers.

Complaints, vulnerable customers and bereavement

If something goes wrong, complain to Wealthify first. Financial firms must have a complaints process, and if the firm cannot resolve your complaint within eight weeks, or you are unhappy with its response, you can take it to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which is free for consumers. The ombudsman covers investment complaints, including those about ISAs⁵.

Firms are expected to treat customers in vulnerable circumstances fairly. The FCA's consumer credit rules note that customers with mental health difficulties or mental capacity limitations may fall into the category of vulnerable customers¹³. Official guidance gives examples of vulnerability such as serious illness, bereavement or loss of income, and states that where appropriate, vulnerable customers may be offered more favourable treatment than others, for example more time to make financial decisions¹⁴. Industry guides describe strategies to help staff deal with vulnerabilities such as serious or terminal illness, bereavement, addiction and mental health issues¹⁵.

If you are struggling financially, it is worth telling the firm. Support exists beyond the firm too: free debt advice charities and MoneyHelper can help you work out what to do, and that help is free and impartial.

For bereavement, firms are expected to have clear, simple advice on their websites about how to report a death, an agreed timeframe for responding to bereavement enquiries, a bereavement team and a direct contact channel¹⁶. When someone who held a Wealthify Plan dies, the executor or next of kin contacts the firm with the death certificate, and the Plan value forms part of the estate.

How your money is protected at Wealthify

Money invested through Wealthify may be protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), with up to £120,000 potentially covered under the scheme³. The brand's firm reference number and authorised status can be checked on the FCA Register⁴.

There are two layers of protection worth understanding:

• Segregation of your money. Many investment platforms hold your money in separate client money accounts, usually with UK banks, so your cash is not the firm's own money and cannot be used to pay its debts¹⁷.
• FSCS cover. Wealthify states it is covered by the FSCS, meaning up to £120,000 may be protected under the scheme¹.

Where protection stops matters. FSCS cover applies to the failure of the firm holding your money, up to the scheme's limit. It does not insure you against market falls, and it does not cover every circumstance, so the protection that matters most day to day is the FCA's rules on how the firm must treat you, and the Financial Ombudsman Service if it does not. Our consumer protection guide sets out these rights in full.