Who is the Wealthify Junior ISA for?
Junior ISAs (or JISAs) are for any child under the age of 18 who is resident in the UK. You can have other ISAs at the same time (though you must not exceed the annual limit on investment), but you can’t have a Child Trust Fund as well as a Junior ISA. These ended on 2 January 2011, so most children under 11 won’t have one of those to worry about. You can, however, transfer a Child Trust Fund to a JISA.
The Wealthify Junior ISA is aimed at busy parents who want to keep tabs on their child’s investments easily as well as those who might be nervous first-time investors and would like things explained in a transparent and simple format.
What is the Junior ISA allowance?
The Junior ISA limit is £9,000 (for tax year 2020/2021) per child - but you can spread this across more than one product if you wish. So if you wanted, you could start a Cash ISA as well as a Stocks and Shares ISA like the Wealthify one.
How easy is the Junior ISA to set up?
Our parent tester said that it really couldn’t have been easier to set up the Junior ISA. It took around 10 minutes for her to set up each one (she set up two), and if you have your bank details and National Insurance number to hand, it’s even quicker.
Her only complaint was that she couldn’t set up ISAs for both children at once. However, the system saved many of the details from the first account, so the second account was marginally quicker to sort.
To set up an account, you pop in your child’s basic details (name, date of birth, home address, etc) and then set up the account with an initial amount. You can do this with as little as £1, so if you aren’t yet sure about how much you want to put in and just want to get the ball rolling with an account, then the JISA will cater to that need.
Our parent tester set up two JISAs with £1 in each and then went back later to set up a monthly direct debit for each account once she’d decided how much she wanted to invest. She found it really easy to log in again and make any necessary changes.
There were no complicated questions to answer and no proof of identification needed, however there was a slight hitch in that, once set up, our tester had no recollection of having entered a password, which was needed to get back into the account. But it was all sorted with a quick Live Chat with a member of the Wealthify team and, within minutes, a password was created and everything was up and running.
Confirmation comes by email immediately and you’re able to check in on the plans online to see when the first payments arrive.
Are there any fees?
Yes, but they are low and very clearly set out. There’s an annual management fee of 0.6% of your savings. There’s no charge for changing your portfolio or transferring into or out of the JISA. Other fees can apply but, again, these are kept low: 0.16% on the Original Plan and 0.7% on the Ethical Plan.
There’s also a slider tool on Wealthify’s website where you can see exactly how much your fees would be according to how much you’ve invested.
What are the standout features of the Wealthify Junior ISA?
We really liked the option to choose the Ethical portfolio, mentioned above, where your money is invested into companies that are committed to doing good.
The way the investment styles are set out and explained is also really user-friendly. Our tester came away feeling she had definitely made the right decision, but also really understood the way it all worked and had learned a fair bit about stocks and shares too. The fact sheets that you’re emailed afterwards on the choices you made are particularly useful.
Finally, we thought the design of the website was very well done. It was so easy to navigate but didn’t look dry, in the way that many money websites do, so you’re happy to hang around and browse for a while. The slider projections, suitability questionnaire and fact files make everything really easy to understand and - dare we say it? - fun as well.