Questions to ask when choosing an IF-ISA

It’s getting close to April 5^th: the end of the current UK personal tax year and the last chance to use your £20k ISA allowance. You can split your ISA allowance between more traditional Cash ISAs and Stocks and Shares ISAs and the newer Innovative Finance ISA (IF ISA). However, choosing an IF ISA can be more difficult:

• The IF ISA providers are often much smaller with less information or reviews on the net
• Most providers only let you invest in loans listed on their own platform – it’s not like a stocks and shares ISA where you largely have access to the same investments whether you open it with the likes of Interactive Investor or Hargreaves Lansdown
• The FAQ’s are not always clear and definitely not standardised.

Here are some questions that you should be asking yourself when you are choosing an Innovative Finance ISA provider: Read more “Questions to ask when choosing an IF-ISA” →

Nutmeg Robo-Advisor Performance Update

I invested in the Nutmeg robo-advisor service at the end of the last tax year to use up my ISA allowance. There are often great cashback offers run by Quidco* and Topcashback* – in my case I had a £170 cashback for a £5,000+ investment which works out at an additional 3.4% return. At this moment in time it seems as neither cashback site has a link for Nutmeg, but offers may come up towards the end of the tax year as these companies fight for investor cash.

I often get questions from readers and other bloggers asking if I know where to find performance data for robo-advisors. I’ve made a comparison tool of the fees (link: Compare Robo-Advisors) but have struggled to find good data on actual performance. The way these advisors work is to ask you questions about your investment goals and risk tolerance and then design an allocation of ETFs for you. In my case I created 2 portfolios with Nutmeg: one of the absolute highest risk (high risk tolerance and 50 year time frame) and one of the absolute lowest risk. I will try to find a way to export the data and compare to basic low cost ETF trackers but for now here is the summarised data of the last 5 and half months for my Nutmeg portfolios: Read more “Nutmeg Robo-Advisor Performance Update” →

Buying CryptoCurrency (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin etc.)

Given the huge volatility and risks involved, buying cryptocurrency could be the worst investment decision you ever make. For me, it is a bit like the dot com boom: many people recognise that this technology may change the world and are just throwing money at any opportunity to profit from the change. At the same time, historically owners of cryptocoins like Bitcoin have made massive returns and it is interesting to understand how to buy cryptocurrency directly if you want some exposure. This article starts with a basic intro to cryptocurrency, then goes on to show you 3 ways you can obtain them yourself.

Before you read any further, look at these two tweets from a bitcoin analyst as a caution before investing any money: Read more “Buying CryptoCurrency (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin etc.)” →

Euro P2P Cashback

A number of continental European peer to peer lending platforms run cashback promotions for new customers. To qualify for these cashback offers you generally have to sign up via a special referral link or use a promo code on sign up. There’s two elements to most EU platforms bonuses:

• A small completely free bonus on sign up, usually around €5
• A percentage of your average investment balance over the first few months

First written June 2017, last updated Nov 2017 with updated Mintos Refer a Friend code

Read more “Euro P2P Cashback” →

The Student Rental Market

UOWN is a Property Crowdfunding platform which allows the public to buy individual shares in UK properties. You can invest in a property via the UOWN platform and receive dividends from ongoing rental income and share in potential capital growth. If you join the site, one of the things you’ll notice is that all of the properties listed so far are student rentals. As the student rental market is quite a hot topic at the moment, I asked Sam Davies of UOWN to share some of his understanding of the market:

In the property crowdfunding market, investors have a huge range of property types to choose from. One property type that has always divided opinion is student property. Historically, some people have chosen to steer clear citing the propensity for students to damage fixtures and fittings, and the intense management needed, as not worth the headache. But with the recent staggered removal of income tax relief on mortgage interest, and higher transaction costs from a stamp duty surcharge on buy to let, the government has firmly put the brakes on the market.

Now more people are turning to student property to get the returns that they desire. With that in mind, what are the underlying fundamentals of the student market and what is in store with Brexit on the horizon? Read more “The Student Rental Market” →

How to Get a Better Exchange Rate on CurrencyFair

CurrencyFair is a low-cost way to do international money transfers. I first wrote about it when researching how to transfer money to European P2P lending sites. CurrencyFair charge a fee of €3/£2.50 to transfer out money, is generally free to transfer in money, and a 0.25% or 0.3% fee on the currency exchange itself.

CurrencyFair claim that around 10% of their transfers actually beat the interbank rate. This is because the matching is done internally on a peer to peer basis. Here are a couple of tips to help you get the best possible exchange rate when using CurrencyFair with an example I did earlier today. Read more “How to Get a Better Exchange Rate on CurrencyFair” →