Who are Hatch?

wealthnewbie

I am a new saver and investor and thought I would contact an IFA to advise about savings. I contacted vouched for website to look for an IFA but found that the vouched for site directs people to those IFAs who can only really advise people with savings of £20,000 or more.
"As Vouchedfor do not allow for advisers to indicated this minimum level on the front page"



I then received a fedback call from vouched for asking if everything had been ok with their service. When I mentioned the £20,000 minimum investment they recommneded a service called Hatchplan
which they said could help with those investors who are just staring out.


I researched a bit and found that Hatch plan is owned by vouched for and are both owned by TW11 WEALTH MANAGEMENT LIMITED. Not only that but they all operate out of the same building. So the person on the phone from vouched for must have just handed the phone across the desk to someone on the Hatch side.

I don't feel very trustworthy right now. Can anyone tell me anything about hatch and are they trying to help people or are they just trying to help themselves?


yours
Newbie

MEM62

Start with one of the generic (Share ISA) products offered by someone like Vanguard or Hargreaves Lansdown. You can look for an IFA, if you still wish to do so, after you have built your investment up to a level where that becomes beneficial.

Malthusian

wealthnewbie wrote: »

I don't feel very trustworthy right now. Can anyone tell me anything about hatch and are they trying to help people or are they just trying to help themselves?

Both, like every other business in the country.

There is little point in having an IFA to advise you on a new investment portfolio because their minimum fee will outweigh any benefit you would get. Sure, you could benefit from very basic advice like "save some money" and "use your ISA allowance", but that kind of basic knowledge can be found on forums like this one for free.

Hatch essentially ignores this principle by charging at least £426 per annum for this kind of thing regardless of how much money you have, plus at least 0.9% of your investments. Personally I think this is cheeky because that £426 should be going into your stocks and shares ISA or pension. But it's a free country.

dunstonh

Most IFAs don't deal with small investors. It is not cost effective to do so. Often you see figures of £50,000 or above. Indeed, we had a new client last year approach us as his IFA was no longer dealing with people under £250,000. Our firm has been ending servicing for anyone with less than £50,000.

Vouchedfor is a not a great search tool to use. Most firms are not on it and Vouchedfor is quite expensive. So, the fees have to be higher to cover the costs of Vouched for. One of the reasons why most firms are not on it.

wealthnewbie

These are great replies. Thank you so much for replying quickly and your openess and honesty regarding these matters.

wealthnewbie

Thanks so much for your reply. That has helped ease my mind

Malthusian

The general rule is that if it's investment and it's on Trustpilot it's a scam. I am fully aware that VouchedFor is one of the exceptions. However, implying that novice investors should give weight to star ratings, especially on Trustpilot, is misleading and dangerous.

(Text removed by MSE Forum Team)

*edit*

For those wondering what the context of my post was, someone from VouchedFor posting in an official capacity bigged up their service on the basis of their Trustpilot rating, and the fact that a high proportion of users of their site gave their adviser they found on VouchedFor a 4- or 5-star rating.

MSE deleted their post as per their rule that people posting in an official capacity have to get permission from them first.

dunstonh

Trustpilot has an awful reputation for ratings on investments. It allows scams to be on there and those scams have had top ratings. Trustpilot is the last place to look when it comes to getting an opinion on value or suitability for investments.

VouchedFor_team

Hi all,

I work for VouchedFor/Hatch and wanted to offer some clarity on the points raised. I did post previously but it was removed, I have since followed the steps that MSE asked me to take to post in an official capacity.

To give some background - in the course of running VouchedFor we noticed we were getting enquiries from people who IFAs typically couldn't profitably help (because the IFAs would have to charge more than it would make sense for these people to pay).

It was for people that IFAs typically can't help that we created Hatch. Hatch uses human financial coaches and financial planning software that we built to provide a personalised financial plan, action list and ongoing coaching (much more than generic information around what ISAs are etc.).

We've worked hard to get the cost of Hatch as low as possible. It now costs £40 per year if you are employed. Granted, the investment advice and management charge of 0.75% will increase this, although most Hatch users are not ready to invest. Please see the full charging structure on the 'Our Charges' section of the Hatch website.

That Hatch is VouchedFor's sister company is displayed clearly on Hatch's website. However, @wealthnewbie, sincere apologies that this was not made clear to you on your call with the VouchedFor team. It absolutely should have been and we have flagged this to the team.

As for VouchedFor and it's worth as a search tool. @dunstonh, I'd challenge the suggestion that the cost of VouchedFor means we don't list a good selection of advisers. You may not be familiar with our latest membership costs but a fully verified profile is £45 + VAT per month and we have thousands of members across the UK. This fee is roughly half that of a site like Checktrade (whose members typically earn a lot less than financial advisers) and goes towards all the checks and monitoring that we do on the advisers on VouchedFor.

I hope this offers more clarity. Happy to answer any other questions about either VouchedFor or Hatch.

Thanks,

Alex

P.S. Re the Trustpilot point. The VouchedFor reviews on there relate to the usability of the website, number of checks, ease of finding information etc. Not to the quality of individual advisers or investment products. The reviews of individual advisers on VouchedFor undergo significantly more vetting than reviews left on Trustpilot.

Albermarle

Advice to the OP is do your own research and don't bother paying for advice at this stage .
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/stocks-shares-isas/

xylophone

OP, if you are just beginning, would the Vanguard ISA suit you?

https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/investing-explained/stocks-shares-isa?cmpgn=PS0617UKPABIS0001&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgdiy7oiT3gIVCbDtCh3y4Qc9EAAYASAAEgIgjPD_BwE

http://monevator.com/using-vanguard-lifestrategy-funds-life/