InvestEngine is for 2 groups of people:
“Hands-Off” Investors
The first are people who want to invest their money, without the hassle of having to do anything themselves (other than set up an account and set up a Direct Debit), and who don’t want to be charged a high fee for the privilege.
InvestEngine’s incredibly low platform fee of 0.25% on Managed accounts and use of low-cost ETFs could easily make them the #1 choice of provider for such people.
However, they only currently offer 2 types of accounts for individuals – a general “Personal” account, and an ISA. They do not offer SIPPs (pensions), nor do they offer Junior ISAs or LISAs. This might make InvestEngine less attractive as a platform if you like to have all of your finances with a single provider.
InvestEngine effectively takes into consideration your tolerance to risk through their sign-up survey, so will be of use to you whether you’re a cliff-diving risk taker, or whether you have just come around to the idea of storing your money somewhere other than a bank account.
The minimum investment amount (£100 lump sum, £50 monthly) is small enough to be accessible to most people.
Low-Cost Index Investors
InvestEngine do not offer any individual stocks, Investment Trusts, or actively managed funds. However, if your investing style is one of passive index investing, and you are happy to manage this yourself, then you won’t find anywhere cheaper in the UK than InvestEngine’s DIY platform.
Investors confident in filtering through the range of ETFs to construct their own portfolio will be able to build an extremely low-cost portfolio to their tastes.
People who have used Trading 212 before will find similarities with the “Pies” feature here. You can add as many or as few ETFs as you like to your portfolio, and then you choose the percentage weightings you want each ETF to represent in your portfolio.
All the ETFs are fractional, and your ETF choices and percentage allocations can be monitored, adjusted and rebalanced easily from the dashboard, whether on the website or via the intuitive app.