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Moneybox Review

as of 30/10/2019 at 11:55 am

Holly's view

A lovely app for the newcomers to investing who have little to no interest in how their money is actually put to work behind the scenes. This service is mobile-first, super engaging, actually very clever in terms of presentation and content, but built on just three very basic and vanilla investment options.

Our Rating

Recommended For

Beginner Investor

In a nutshell

Truly mobile-first

Super engaging

Limited investment choice

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Your overall rating

Based on 13 reviews

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What to Expect

  1. Award Winner
  2. Ease of use
  3. Mobile and apps
  4. Behind the scenes

Winner: Best Money App

Winner: Best For Beginners

Awarded at our Consumer Investment Awards 2019

Customers praised Moneybox as a simple but engaging app that has made investing easy. It was also called out for its decoding of complex jargon and getting people into investing for the first time.

Opening an account was slick and easily done on a mobile.

All the more cumbersome documentation and details are kept until the very last minute, which is clever. But even then it’s not much more than knowing your National Insurance number.

It is relatively easy to provide your banking details so the Moneybox app can get to work rounding up your loose change. We don’t know how secure the tech is behind the scenes on this but it’s read-only access so it feels OK.

There are also really simple projection tools which give you a tangible idea of how saving an extra £10 a week could boost long-term savings.

This is one of the few investment services which truly feels mobile-first. It is slick and easy to sign up and add money to your investments. The only downside is that if you want to find out more information about the underlying investment choices it is not that easy to do so.

There are three main investment options for customers: Cautious, Balanced or Adventurous. These portfolios are now more diverse; made up of different funds, where they used to be a blend of a select three.

The Lifetime ISA and Junior ISA are interesting additions to the service. Just be careful with Lifetime ISAs and picking the more adventurous options - be sure your timeframes are aligned.

Investment Choice

Products

Stocks and Shares ISA

Junior ISA

Lifetime ISA

Investment Account

Investments available

Funds from other groups

Ethical investments

Investment help

Robo advice / ready-made portfolios

The 'Geeky' Details

Provider details

There are three core investment choices in Moneybox: the Cautious fund; the Balanced fund and the Adventurous fund.

Costs are an average of 0.68% a year plus a £1 a month subscription fee. The 0.68% is made up of 0.45% for the platform administration and an average of 0.23% for the funds – the cash option will be cheaper than the Adventurous option as shares cost a bit more to manage.

Important Facts & Figures

Provider Size:

Small start-up but has some big friends under the bonnet
12 month indicative performance:

Dated performance availability online. From 1.1% to 9.1% in 2017.

Your Questions

"I've got a Stock and Shares ISA with Moneybox. I recently invested a £5000 lump sum with them, and I'm making regular weekly investments of £75. When I invested the £5000, the share price was quite high based on the performance of the fund. I'm just wondering whether I made a mistake investing the lump sum in one go, and whether I should have drip fed it into the account in the same way as my weekly deposits? If so, should I withdraw and start to drip feed it back in?"

Tim, West Midlands

05/04/2019

Read our reply

Your question

I've got a Stock and Shares ISA with Moneybox. I recently invested a £5000 lump sum with them, and I'm making regular weekly investments of £75. When I invested the £5000, the share price was quite high based on the performance of the fund. I'm just wondering whether I made a mistake investing the lump sum in one go, and whether I should have drip fed it into the account in the same way as my weekly deposits? If so, should I withdraw and start to drip feed it back in?

Tim, West Midlands

05/04/2019

Mark Dampier says

Hi Tim,

There is a myth around drip-feeding into an investment that it is always the better plan.

First, many investors don’t have large sums to invest, and would rather invest monthly amounts of say £100. This is an excellent way of building up an investment pot over many years.

Some investors who have a lump sum to invest also like to drip feed this money in.

It is more about investors emotions and loss aversion.

Many don’t like the idea of investing £100,000 all at once. They worry that the market might suddenly fall.

Some may divide their sum into four, and deposit the investment in stages. If this gives you peace of mind, then that’s fine.

However as markets generally go up more than they go down, statistically you are more likely to lose out by drip feeding a lump sum in the market, than investing it all at once. Of course there are exceptions like 2008, but they are near impossible to forecast!

Finally, don’t mess around with the investment once you have made it!

 

More on Stocks and Shares ISA

Just be aware...

We are not regulated to give personal financial advice - This isn’t full-fat regulated financial advice. Boring Money is a publisher and not regulated by the FCA. 

This means we can't help with specific personal circumstances or recommend specific investment products. It also basically means that if we say something daft, you have no recourse to come back and complain.

We’re only allowed to give you a steer or share an opinion or tell you the facts - That said, we promise that our answer to you is an independent unbiased perspective with no commercial gain to make. If you need regulated financial advice, you can find a good adviser via sites such as Unbiased & Vouchedfor.

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