I’d like to start Freetrade accounts for the kids. If their personalities are anything to go by, one would be a cautious passive indexer, the other a return-seeking YOLOer.
Will the GIA have a minimum age? Will a JISA happen? And if so, on same timeframe as ISA?
You must be 18 years old to have a General Investment Account.
ISA is one of the things that are “to be launched soon after the overall launch” but JISA has never been mentioned before. I would assume it is to be after the SIPP due to not an excessive demand.
In terms of JISAs, it is not something we have heard overwhelming demand for, and so while it is on our roadmap we don’t see it as a priority at the moment. Although as with anything it would be great to hear from our community on this, and if it has the demand we can look to accelerate it.
ISAs on the other hand are right at the top of our list. We expect to enable them in our backend in a matter of weeks, and @Freetrade_Team_Design is hard at work on the UX for it. We want to make sure it is intuitive to use, and in particular that we make it easy to switch between accounts, buy into the correct account and see useful information in aggregate or by account. More to come on this soon!
If you understand investing you probably think that a S&S JISA is the best option in terms of return potential. If you enjoy investing then a JISA adds to the fun, plus it creates a great lesson in investing to be taught at some stage. All of above probably applies to Freetraders that have or plan to have kids (high proportion?). That is to say that If I have an ISA with Freetrade and I have kids I will probably also want JISAs - a 1 stop shop would be the preference rather than send the business elsewhere.
I can also imagine many people’s initial interest in investment being driven by there want to invest for their children, so it helps capture those individuals.
The summary is, I think Freetrade shouldn’t not offer JISAs at some stage. I was personally holding off setting up elsewhere to see if Freetrade would offer a JISA (more of a hope than an expectation) so interested in the discussion.
Would be nice to have a Google Forms poll where people could express their demand. If you ask about GIA/ISA/SIPP/JISA, you will see a rough proportionate split I guess.
My son has some dosh stashed away in a junior ISA and i would like to continue saving for him, so a couple of questions (if they have already been answered then please point me correctly):
When will Freetrade do Junior ISA’s?
Will i need to set up a separate account for my son and if so how will i manage this? Will i need two apps on my phone (is that even possible?) or will i see his account in my app?
Can i set up a normal Freetrade account now on behalf of my son (not Junior ISA) and manage it myself?
He is 5, can you suggest any presents Santa should bring him this Christmas?
I’m really hoping we get these somewhere down the line. I’ve got a JISA for both of my daughters with HL and they both just have the one VLS fund sitting in them, for which HL take their 0.45% a year! I’d like to see it managed through my own account, perhaps with my wife having access through hers too.
It would also be nice to allow grandparents etc to contribute in some straightforward way for birthdays & Christmas.
I’m guessing the answer to your third question is ‘no’, given you need a NI number to register.
On your last question, my five-year-old is going through a real Paw Patrol phase at the moment, have you heard of it? . Failing that, maybe some more units of a low-cost global equity tracker? He’ll love you for that in 13yrs time!
(p.s. I realise we’re now massively off-topic, maybe split these into another thread @Freetrade_Team1 if there isn’t already one for JISAs?)
He was into paw patrol, but now it’s pokemon and transformers.
I actually had his money in an aim share, until I realised I had stopped investing and was instead gambling with his money - so now I have stuck it all in a tracker etf. (Knowing my luck the aim gamble will now fly!!)
We don’t have a timescale for JISAs yet, we’re focused on things like launching ISAs & US stocks first. We’ll share more details when we publish our roadmap.
As long as the account that you manage is in your name & funded from your bank account that’s ok. I’m sure you wouldn’t be the only person who invests for the benefit of their family
Sorry Alex, just need some clarification on that second point. So does that mean I can have 2 Freetrade accounts (eventually) as long as they’re linked to my bank account?
I’d also like to have a JISA on freetrade. I see JISA on a fixed fee platform like Freetrade a major selling point.
Your own ISA you might not max out, and you might withdraw from it after 5 or 10 years, and so never reach very high values, so maybe a low % platform that’s more mature and offers more features would be better.
But you’re quite likely to be able to max a JISA every year for 18 years, and can’t withdraw. So you’re going to have something in the region of £100k in there, and a fixed £36/year platform fee will make Freetrade the no-brainer choice for JISAs. If they offered one…
Only if you’re rich. I as with much of the population wouldn’t consider maxing out the JISA for kids. Based on my current financial situation a £10-20 per month plus a bit more for special occasions such as birthdays or Christmas is about as much a I could afford.
as JISAs being a long way off (best case) or possibly never happening. (Would love to be wrong about that. In the meantime, I’m opening JISAs elsewhere.)