MoneyBox App

edinburghlad

So I have decided that I want to give investing a go.. nothing big, just a small monthly payment of say £50

I have downloaded the MoneyBox app, anyone had any experience investing with them? If so, what do you think and would you recommend?

jimjames

I'd look at the more mainstream options first. How do the charges compare and what do they offer that the likes of HL don't?

edinburghlad

I'm totally new to this.. but the charges seem fair?

What are the fees?

There are two fees:

Fixed Monthly Fee

£1 per month, free for the first three months.

This fee covers all transactions and all investing costs. Most users invest every week into the three tracker funds, meaning that you can make 156 investments per year at just 7p per trade! This fee is charged at the end of each month, by selling down your largest holding.

Note: This is charged on a ‘per product’ basis so if you were to have a Stocks & Shares ISA and a GIA the monthly charge would be £2.

Platform Fee

0.45% of the value of your investments per year. This fee accrues daily but is charged at the end of each month by selling down your largest holding.

Please note that the Fixed Monthly Fee and the Platform Fee are only reflected in the daily valuation within the app at the end of each month.

In addition, you will also pay the fund management fees levied directly by the tracker fund providers (Vanguard, Henderson and BlackRock). These fees accrue daily and are reflected in your daily valuation. For each of the Starting Options the fund fees average about 0.23% per year.

If you withdraw all your money or close your account, then we calculate the Fixed Monthly Fee and the Platform Fee on a daily basis for that month and deduct these fees before you receive the money.

Plus

0.45% of the value of your investments per year.

Ouch. That's the Rolls Royce end of the market as far as platform fees go.
The question is: what do they add over another provider that might cost 0.25%?

(in case 0.45% doesn't sound like much, if you make 4.5% a year then the platform will take one tenth of your growth for themselves)

Linton

Plus wrote: »

Ouch. That's the Rolls Royce end of the market as far as platform fees go.
The question is: what do they add over another provider that might cost 0.25%?

(in case 0.45% doesn't sound like much, if you make 4.5% a year then the platform will take one tenth of your growth for themselves)

The OP is only investing £50/month. 0.45% of £600=£2.70/year . I cant see MoneyBox getting rich on that.

Rather more of an issue would be the £1/month subscription fee.

dunstonh

Sounds very expensive for a DIY solution and also quite unnecessarily complicated.

AnotherJoe

I don't like the "selling down your largest holding" either, is there an option just to have additional money to fund that ?

edinburghlad

Thanks everyone for the feedback. Do you have any recomendations for DIY investing?

grey_gym_sock

for starting out investing a small amount, put it all in multi-asset fund, in an ISA, via a cheap platform.

some cheap platforms, each charging 0.25% per year of the current value of your investments (a good charging method when you have a smaller amount invested) are:

- charles stanley direct
- cavendish online
- close brothers

3 ranges of multi-asset funds which are often mentioned (they're ranges because each includes a number of funds, at different risk levels, from which you'd choose 1) are:

- vanguard lifestrategy
- legal & general multi-index
- blackrock consensus

an article on lifestrategy: http://monevator.com/vanguard-lifestrategy/

hutman

HL also has platform charge ~0.45% - but they've told me its capped annually?

Malthusian

hutman wrote: »

HL also has platform charge ~0.45% - but they've told me its capped annually?

Only for investment trusts, ETFs and individual securities (shares, gilts and bonds). This isn't a bad deal on the face of it but people who hold these investments generally spend more on dealing costs. The charge on funds (unit trusts & OEICs) isn't capped unless you have more than 2 mill to invest.

Re the subject of the thread: expensive, limited functionality, and very new and small (this is an administrative risk rather than a financial one). Only for those for whom slick mobile marketing is more important than value for money.