MEGATHREAD: Recurring orders (Beta) is here

So for ETFs without fractionals, would you end up with change from whatever the stock price is at the time? Gotta get those UK fractionals :wink:

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Does this mean UK Fractional Shares are a thing? :pray: :eyes:

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Would help as always change left over and just under the Ā£2 minimum buy :roll_eyes::roll_eyes:

Can someone on an iPhone confirm if this is the case? Or someone from freetrade?

Looking forward to this - assuming I can have one standing order of, say, 200 quid with 50 into each of 4 regular purchases. 4 standing orders would be a bit annoying (though Iā€™d still use it I expect)

OMG :eyes::eyes::eyes:

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I completely understand. As mentioned earlier in the thread, recurring orders for a collection of stocks is something we are looking at. We launched with single stocks first as it was quick and easy to deliver value that works!

correct, any change would be kept as cash in your account!

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Looks to be the case, you got a unique reference per stock and account (GIA/ISA/SIPP)

The Autopilot thread is now closed, however the first post on that was about dividend reinvestment which it doesnā€™t sound like this is.

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Why has it been set up this way? The best user experience would be to set up one standing order (even better direct debit) and then allocate the stock / % / account the money goes into within the appā€¦

This feels very clunkyā€¦

Is this a stepping stone?

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Itā€™s generally referred to as minimum viable product (MVP) in the development world.
So wouldnā€™t necessarily cover every use case or scenario, personally works for myself in the first instance for buying shares in a all world ETF.

With an MVP subsequent/incremental improvements can be added, planned, or noted down as ideas to be evaluated for business value and planned.

It also allows for an element of feedback from users/customers, which may uncover additional ideas (dependant on the feature of course) and/or reported bugs

This feature along with reporting and stats, website beta etc
All seem to be following that MVP route, it gives visibility for those complaining (valid on past delivery speed) about lack of progress in features and I think generally gives a feeling of success and boost of morale to the team delivering, all improvement/progress being good no matter how small.

Thatā€™s the general theory anyway

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@woodyblade is correct! It is just an MVP and should not suggest that this is what the final product will look like (unless feedback states otherwise).

Thereā€™s this famous presentation from Spotify about project delivery which explains that in order to deliver a car, you should first built the skateboard. What we have here today is the skateboard! :wink: (article).

Making-sense-of-MVP-

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Speaking of feedback, I am really glad you brought this up as we have been discussing internally the pros and cons of direct debit vs standing order (and other payment methods). What are peopleā€™s thoughts on using standing orders vs direct debits?

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Seems like a community management/moderation issue. May be worth discussing further here:

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Hopefully one of FTā€™s goals is to boost AUA. Therefore you need to make it as easy as possible for people to send money to their FT account. There is a reason DD exists and although itā€™s more expensive for FT, it should be an option (unless you can do the equivalent with open banking / True Layer).

You also want people to stay engaged with an app. If I want to buy 20 stocks every monthā€¦ can you imagine how hard it is with the current productā€¦ youā€™ll have no data of people setting up 20 standing orders as itā€™s a complete pain. If it was in the app howeverā€¦ would be much simpler.

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As a customer I prefer standing orders. I have control over these. Direct debits - you have control over. Given that we are talking about fixed sums there is no need to have a direct debit.

OTH if your proposition were a fixed number of shares I would understand why a direct debit made sense.

I would carefully reconsider whether I wanted to use the service if it turned into a DD one.

I think DD allows a bit more flexibility on Freetrades side to setup the regular investment, as well as change the amount in the future without manual intervention (for example to lump all regular investments into one DD, the DD can be modified to take more or less if more investmentā€™s are added or removed; or if I want to invest more in a stock every month it can be automatically scalled).

Thereā€™s also less work involved for the user, no need to manually add in a standing order and remove standing orders.

Standing order though is pretty simple and straightforward if all I want to do is add x amount of money to my freetrade account every month to manage investing manually.

Edit: what do you think about using open banking VRP instead of direct debits?

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Open banking has an option called variable recurring payments that work similar to direct debits. Maybe this is a cheaper more modern alternative

It would also give users more control at the same time

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Sounds good. Anything that means people donā€™t have to paste long reference codes into their banksā€¦ feels very archaic!

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I prefer standing orders mainly because I can edit them instantly. I believe amending a direct debit is not possible a few days before it is due.

Whilst direct debit enables amounts taken to vary month to month, this is not something I personally want.

I do want the ability to automate distribution of a single monthly deposit amongst various investments (via in-app rules). If there is left over cash (due to fixed deposit) the left over could go into a cash holding pot to be used next month).

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I closed the autopilot request for a few reasons.

  • Reoccurring investments, while currently in beta, is the product Adam talked about when he called it Autopilot.

  • As mentioned above this current iteration is only the beginning. It wonā€™t be long before this evolves to include cash balances which of course encompasses DRIP.

  • There is not need to split the discussion over two threads and keeping the discussion on the Megathread created and followed by the product manager/s makes it easier to follow for all.

Hope that explains my thinking :ok_hand:t2:

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