Top Child Trust Funds Article Discussion Area

lauren290788

Im wondering if anyone can help i had a CTF when my child was born back in 2009 i paid money into it on a regular basis, but i moved address and didnt keep track of the CTF letters.

Now im wondering how to track the account down so i can start paying back into it again.

thank you xx

snowcat53

wriggly wrote: »

The Management Fee is included in the TER/OGC, so you do not need to add it. You should just compare the TER/OGC, but be aware that OGC includes some additional charges that may not have been included in the TER. Assuming the additional costs from TER to OGC were consistently 0.4%, the amount by which the cost increased following the introduction of OGC, the best estimate of your actual costs were:

Date: estimated OGC
Jan 2007: 0.85%
Jan 2009: 0.93%
Dec 2012: 0.92%

So, the costs for FCIT have stayed around the same.

If you have £10,000 invested, the new fee will increase the effective OGC to 1.22%.

If you have £250 invested, the new fee will increase the effective OGC to 12.9%! Get out now!

Happy to be corrected on those figures,
Another example though of the personal finance industry bamboozling us by constant changes to costs and acronyms
For my son's fund of 17k, moving out of the F&C shares fund would cutting off nose to spite face. Unless there is a cheaper way of accessing good funds elsewhere..

gaikami

That's a good discussion I love that.

RubyBish

Tarquinius wrote: »

Thanks for the link

Signed!

Bit disappointing it has so few signatures...I wonder if MSE could encourage more to sign via the weekly email?

Might be worth signing the H&L petition as its been running for a lot longer...

https://www.hl.co.uk/investment-services/junior-isa/ctf-transfers-to-junior-isas

ViksB

Signed the above.
Only time will time will tell if any of it will make any difference.

Fingers crossed

Tarquinius

Available Alternative Options to F&C

I've done a bit of research into some of the available alternatives to F&C - thought it may be helpful to share. The list is not exhaustive by any means, and do your own research to check. The best options I've found are:

Selftrade Self Select Shares CTF : This account has no inactivity fee or annual fee (so I was told when I rang them). Trades cost £12.50 flat fee.

Selftrade Index tracking stakeholder CTF:. No dealing fees and no account fees. The only fee appears to be the underlying fund management fees - about 0.4% on the L&G UK Index Trust they use. This is way less than the statutory maximum of 1.5% for stakeholders and lower than the c. 1.1% (?) for the F&C CTF

Both the above self trade accounts appear to have very low charging structures, unless I'm missing something. However Selftrade are not opening new accounts for now, and they can't tell me on the phone how long that may last.

The Share Centre: Stakeholder CTF charges the standard 1.5%, but their shares CTF charges 0.5%+VAT per annum (min £10) and a 1% (min £7.50) dealing fee, plus any underlying fund charges.

or

Furness BS: Cash CTF paying 3.05%. No charges


Conclusion: Obviously it all hinges on personal circumstances. But for my situation, I'm going to wait and see whether Selftrade open up to new accounts in the next couple of weeks and if so transfer to a share-based ISA with them. If not, then I'll probably go with The Share Centre's share based CTF.

But I won't be investing any new money with them - for small investments at xmas and birthdays (gifts from grandparents) it isn't economic to pay the dealing charges. For new investments, I'm going to use my other daughter's Junior ISA account, and keep track manually of the split and explain that a portion is for her sister.

Hope this helps and I'd welcome thoughts as always

graemev2

New to this forum. Saw all the discussion about charges. Starting here:

www . juniorisas . org/html /compare.html

I looked at sippdeal ... their charges seemed lower but I've never heard of them before?

Tarquinius

graemev2 wrote: »

New to this forum. Saw all the discussion about charges. Starting here:

www . juniorisas . org/html /compare.html

I looked at sippdeal ... their charges seemed lower but I've never heard of them before?

Unless I've missed the relevant info on these sites, both the site and sippdeal look like they deal with Junior ISAs rather than CTFs. Sadly government don't allow those with CTFs to move the funds across in Junior ISAs.

I don't know much about sippdeal, but I've heard them mentioned a fair bit on the forums.

Good luck.

xylophone

I

m wondering if anyone can help i had a CTF when my child was born back in 2009 i paid money into it on a regular basis, but i moved address and didnt keep track of the CTF letters.

Now im wondering how to track the account down so i can start paying back into it again.

thank you xx

Try Child Trust Fund Helpline? http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/index/contacts/contacts-az/child-trust-fund-helpline.htm

RubyBish

Lets hope this get resolved today...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/how-budget-affect-me/9941284/Budget-2013-Boost-for-Child-Trust-Fund-savers.html

Still means that F&C will get a minimum of £15 as the transfers will not be available until the new tax year.