CTF discussion area

davidjwest

Ickle_Steve wrote:

This is the discussion I'm trying to make. I've already got an Investment Trust going for our children so the CTF voucher will be all that’s paid into the Child Trust Fund. My dilemma is whether to go for the basic Britannia savings account at 6% or go for a Stakeholder or Share fund with the potential for more growth but at a higher risk. If the growth is only going to average out at around 8%, is the extra hassle worth it for such a small amount?
If there were some more exciting investments rather than just Trackers available under the stakeholders on offer and lower charges then maybe I'd go for that.

That's the real trick though, the million dollar question so to speak, how are stocks/shares going to perform over the next 18 years?

If you take say 5-6% as the average for savings and around 8% for shares as growth, then taking off the 1.5% or so charges the difference is very small indeed.

I need to do some more research to see what the lowest charge would be for one of the non-stakeholder CTFs which lets you either self select shares or a tracker perhaps a managed fund of some type, surely one of them must charge less than 1.5% if you aren't buying/selling all the time.

Will keep you posted.

ssm_3

Hi

I am interested to open a CTF a/c for my baby but is bowled over by various players on the market. All seems same but using this thread I am slowly learning the subtle differences.

Last weekend found a leaflet at ASDAs on CTF... it says it will also give £15 free cash upfront(in form ASDA Gift card) which will be upped to £25 if £5 is paid by DD into it... It is run by Homeowners Investment Fund.. Capped Annual Charge of 1.5%.

http://www.asdafinance.com/child-trust-fund.html

What do you feel about this? Any thoughts most welcome!

davidjwest

It's actually the "Homeowners" CTF, as stated on their website:

ASDA Financial Services Limited is an Introducer firm to Homeowners Investment Fund Managers Limited (HIFML), registered no.3224780. Engage Mutual Assurance is a trading name of HIFML, Hornbeam Park Avenue, Harrogate HG2 8XE, United Kingdom. HIFML is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). HIFML's FSA Register number is 181487. You can check this on the FSA's Register by visiting the FSA's website https://www.fsa.gov.uk/register or by contacting the FSA on 0845 606 1234.

Homeowners Investment Funds ICVC is an investment company with variable capital, registered in England No. IC00044.

To be honest neither the Asda site or the Homeowners one is exactly clear or full of information (or I'm being dense) but it looks like a stakeholder CTF with charges of 1.5% per annum (as usual for a stakeholder) which invests in FTSE 100 companies, probably a tracker but it doesn't say if it is or not.

So not a bad product, but there are loads of these out there offering the same charges etc so nothing special, but you do get some free vouchers!

Usual disclaimer applies, I'm not an IFA so don't take what I say as gospel, do your own research etc!

lost_2

I have received my childs cheque, and have actually had it nearly 2 weeks now. I just dont know which company to invest it with. The one thing i do know is that i want his money invested ethically and so far the only company i have been able to find that does ethical investing is CIS. Is this right, if not which other company's provide the option of having the money ethically invested and what should i be looking for when trying to compare company's.

I am a complete and utter novice, i tried to read some of the threads below, but most of them just went above and beyond me!!

Please, please, please help, obviously the sooner i get this money invested, the better!

Kallisti

Hi,
I know there is at least one other, but since I had called, emailed, and collated all the information I figured I might as well put it on the internet for others so they didn't have such a burden! Anyway, the result is that on http://www.ctfchoice.com you should have a full list of all the directly provided accounts and some of their more important features.

I'm just a parent who figured others might find a use for this. Getting the information into this format made it obvious to me which direction I wanted to go, maybe it'll help you do the same?

Cheers, feel free to give me feedback, or if you're an IFA that's interested in defining a calculator and taking responsibility for it, I'd like to hear from you to enable the "investment calculator" bit! (Too scared of the FSA to try it myself).

Kallisti

lost wrote:

i want his money invested ethically and so far the only company i have been able to find that does ethical investing is CIS.

Please, please, please help, obviously the sooner i get this money invested, the better!

I said that a second ethical investment might exist, however, I called them again today and they double checked and it's not. So the only ethical choices is from the Children's mutual directly or via Co-operative Investment Services (CIS), and that's a european investment.

Second is that you shouldn't worry unduly about timing. So long as you invest it within the next 3 weeks, you should get the maximum savings benefit.

Kallisti

Ickle_Steve wrote:

If there were some more exciting investments rather than just Trackers available under the stakeholders on offer and lower charges then maybe I'd go for that.

It might be worth looking at the motley fool's opinion of that excitement!:

http://www.fool.co.uk/trackers/index.htm

Kallisti

davidjwest wrote:

Ethical CTF

This one is, there may be others too, it's on my to-do list of things to add to my site, an indication as to which providers offer "ethical" products.

David
https://www.ctfguide.co.uk

David, just as a matter of interest, where did you read that the children's mutual is ethical (as a direct choice)? When offered through CIS they appear to have an ethical choice, but directly I can't see it? (although they do have a european investment that is ethical, it only appears to apply to their "baby bond" product.

davidjwest

Kallisti wrote:

David, just as a matter of interest, where did you read that the children's mutual is ethical (as a direct choice)? When offered through CIS they appear to have an ethical choice, but directly I can't see it? (although they do have a european investment that is ethical, it only appears to apply to their "baby bond" product.

No problem, here's a direct link to the page about ethical investments: European Ethical

It's certainly not easy to find on their web of a site! But who am I to talk!

:rotfl:

lost_2

I have also found out about another company called forresters who also (claim to) provide ethically investment ctf's.

Anyybody heard of them??