Government Child Trust Fund Advice Please

dibbs26

I have recently received the voucher for my childs CTF account. Does anybody have any idea on where I can obtain comparisons on various accounts or does anybody have any advice of there own ?
Thanks for the info in advance !

davidjwest

There is a sticky thread for Child Trust Fund questions at the top of this forum list.

But you may find my website helpful, but do bear in mind I am not a qualified IFA so even after consulting my site it's worth doing your own research!

dibbs26

Thanks dave for the reply. Your site says we have two choices but the government site says three (deposit, share & stakeholder). Do you know what the difference is between the share and stakeholder accounts, a lot of companies don't seem to offer the share option and the stakeholder option seem a tad complicated...................
Thanks for your help the voucher is burning a hole in the fireplace !!!

isasmurf

LOL! It just shows you how much the government know, Stakeholders are meant to be simpler then ordinary equity accounts. The Stakeholder is the same as an equity (share) CTF except it has to operate in a certain way. The Stakeholder has a limit on charges of 1.5% for the first 10 years and 1% thereafter, and it must offer lifestyling as a default - although I think you can opt out of lifestyling if you want) Lifestyling simply means as the child gets nearer to 18 the money is slowly switched from riskier equity funds to safer cash or cash like funds.

davidjwest

dibbs26 wrote:

Thanks dave for the reply. Your site says we have two choices but the government site says three (deposit, share & stakeholder). Do you know what the difference is between the share and stakeholder accounts, a lot of companies don't seem to offer the share option and the stakeholder option seem a tad complicated...................
Thanks for your help the voucher is burning a hole in the fireplace !!!

Thanks for the feedback.

I stated two types meaning savings or investment type CTFs.

I didn't want to go into stakeholder/non-stakeholder on the front page as it might confuse people (it confused me when I first found out) but there are details about what stakeholder means on the FAQ page.

I've changed this now, so as to try to prevent any confusion, but time permitting I will add some more detail.

Thanks again!

dibbs26

No worries, you site is a great source of information. I called 'Family Investments' today concerning their stakeholder account for my son and to be honest they couldnt even tell me what proportion of the money is invested in shares and what proportion in other investment.....very worrying really. I chose them first because the fund is managed by 'New Star' which is run by the guy who used to run 'Jupiter'.
I am now very confused by the whole 'CTF' thing.....the people who you call about their products know very little about them.
My next company to call is' The Share Centre' hopefully they maybe ok.
Do you have any advice on which companies are ok overall?
Cheers !

cloud_dog

dibbs, have placed my voucher with Family Investments.

Family are not doing themselves any favours by not knowing the product. I had exactly the same problems when I enquired. Eventually got an e-mail detailing the investment approach.

As you say, New Star are the fund managers (a FM I am very comfortable with) and the breakdown (initially) is:

UK Equities....................................42%
Overseas Equities (total allocation)....28% (split between Europe, US, and Far East)
UK Fixed Interest............................20%
Overseas Fixed Interest.....................7%
Cash.............................................3%

Unfortunately the monies will not be managed by any of their star managers (no pun intended) but will be invested in New Stars retail funds for these areas.

As I said I am happy with New Star as the manager and Family allow additional investments from £10pm or you can top-up online (probably what I'll be doing every now and then).

cloud_dog

ilovefreebies_2

Its all so complicated

cloud_dog

ilovefreebies wrote:

Its all so complicated

Its not hugely complicated. You just need to decide on a couple of questions:

1) Are you prepared to take some risk with the money
2) Will you be making additional payments (if so regular or ad-hoc)

The below article is probably quite useful if you can't / don't want to spend hour's reading T's&C's etc:

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/saving-and-banking/article.html?in_article_id=399208&in_page_id=7

References to stakeholder CTF relate to share based funds meeting the government CAT standards, i.e. no more than 1.5pa charges etc.

If you are not comfortable with risk (or risking your child's money) then steer clear of invetment based CTF's and go for a cash based one. I think Brittania is quite popular (david's site does list them)

If you are comfortable with risk then you need to make a choice on where / with whom the money is invested. At this point I stop making recommendations as it is you who need to feel comfortable about investment decisions.

cloud_dog
p.s. before we go on and on, alot of this ground has already been covered in the CTF thread at the top of this forum.