Junior S&S ISA… paying cheque from grandparent in 6 March at 11:26PM in ISAs & tax-free savings 3 replies 94 views

sarah748

Can anyone recommend a Junior Stocks & Shares ISA where I can pay in/post a cheque in?

My baby daughter received a cheque made out in her name from her grandmother for Christmas. We haven’t opened a bank account for her yet so need to open one in order to pay it in and I am not sure how complicated the cheque paying in part will be/which ISA providers accept them. I thought it would be fairly straightforward but I asked Wealthify Live Chat about this and from their response it sounds like they are not very familiar with what a cheque even is 😅😂

So I guess I would like a recommendation from someone who has done this please… 

The grandmother herself mentioned NS&I (though I don’t believe this is stocks and shares). Not sure whether I’m obligated to not put it in stocks and shares if the grandmother doesn’t want me to (I think she views them as risky)… but I guess that is more of a moral question…! I don’t want to do anything high risk with it but think S&S might be the most lucrative for her future.

xylophone

https://www.gov.uk/junior-individual-savings-accounts



Fidelity often gets a favourable mention for its S&S JISA.

You might first open a JISA with them and perhaps consider a global multi asset fund for the investment?

https://monevator.com/passive-fund-of-funds-the-rivals/

https://www.fidelity.co.uk/junior-isa/

You might give Fidelity a ring and explain the situation regarding the cheque?

If you decide to go the cash route, you might consider the Coventry BS Junior ISA.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/junior-isa/

Albermarle

The grandmother herself mentioned NS&I (though I don’t believe this is stocks and shares). Not sure whether I’m obligated to not put it in stocks and shares if the grandmother doesn’t want me to (I think she views them as risky)… but I guess that is more of a moral question…! I don’t want to do anything high risk with it but think S&S might be the most lucrative for her future.

N S & I only offer savings type accounts and Premium Bonds of course.

There is no such thing as a no risk place to put the money. If you put it in a savings account, then most of the time the interest rate you get is below the inflation rate. So although you are guaranteed to get your money back with interest, over 18 years it may well have lost one third of its value ( in terms of what you can buy with it) .

In a S&S JISA, it will go up and down, but history tells us that over 18 years it should beat inflation at least and probably do better than that. Not guaranteed but the risk is low, due to the long time frame involved. In any case if you stick to mainstream low cost index trackers, even if they go down, they will never go down to zero, so no chance to suddenly lose everything.

Alexland

My kids have Lloyds Child Saver accounts which I use to deposit any gift cheques as digital images using the mobile app using the same login details as my grown up Lloyds accounts. It's much more convenient than going to a bank or posting a cheque with a form somewhere to be processed.
I can then use the money via my adult account to make a debit card deposit into their free Fidelity S&S JISA accounts for investment in the discounted Fidelity World global tracker fund at 0.10% pa. Again I use the same login details as my grown up Fidelity accounts. The fund might drop around 50% in a stock market crash but as above time dilutes risk and once the accounts have started accumulating returns it becomes less likely they will drop below the level of contributions. You can change to lower risk funds or back into cash to derisk in the years leading up to the likely withdrawal date. 
Over the long term a good S&S investment is more likely to keep up or grow above inflation than cash savings so you might consider long term cash savings a greater risk to their future wealth than S&S investing. Still you probably need to respect the wishes of the person gifting the money. Maybe run a volatile S&S JISA with your own gifted money and a Cash JISA with contributions from others as child interest rates tend to be reasonably attractive anyway?