What's happening at Invest Engine?

BlueMoon2

I have a stocks & shares ISA with InvestEngine but have been trying to open a GIA since March. From what I can see they have been "making improvements to their onboarding process" for most of the year. Despite advertising to the contrary, they are only offering ISA's, SIPPs or DIY portfolios - no managed portfolios of any sort. When I contact them they provide a stock answer about working as fast as possible but having no date as to when managed portfolios will return. Is the time being taken to improve things indicative of deeper problems and should I be moving my ISA elsewhere?

masonic

They've been glacially slow at rolling out SIPP transfers in, although have finally added a second provider (HL) recently after well over a year promising to expand beyond Vanguard.

If you want an advisory service, it may be worth going elsewhere - at least in the short term. Though it has to be said the performance of such options has tended to be quite underwhelming (for example Nutmeg).

If you are thinking being slow is reason to question their continued viability, then that would seem to be rather irrational.

BlueMoon2

Thank you Masonic. I am fairly new to investing and wanted to use a 'managed portfolio' initially. InvestEngine had very good write-ups and is Which recommended so have gone with them. Having used this year's ISA allowance I wanted to open a GIA with them but despite having initially opened a LifePlan account they shut it without telling me before I could add funds. Not sure what the next best option would be!

Albermarle

These relatively new players, with  very low/zero fee business models, inevitably will come with some drawbacks compared to a more established ( and more expensive ) provider.

masonic

LifePlan is just their own version of the humble multi-asset fund, which, looking at the ETF holdings, they have made unnecessarily complex. If someone came here and posted one of those as their own investment portfolio, it would attract some critique!

I would suggest you review the following article to see what you can get from a fund solution: https://monevator.com/passive-fund-of-funds-the-rivals/

Something like this could be held on one of the many platforms that allow you to hold funds (not just ETFs). For example, iWeb, whose only fees are a £5 trading fee.