InvestEngine: ETF Investing 17+

Exceeded Expectations

Brilliant of them to offer investment accounts for small businesses in the UK. They also have a friendly and professional customer service team. For instance, when I spotted a typo on one of the companies in one of the ETFs they offered, it was prompted corrected after a quick chat.

I like they show my exact exposure to a certain company even when I have dozens of ETFs in my portfolio. Not that it matters much when any portfolio could easily hold 4,000 companies. But the transparency and thoughtfulness are greatly appreciated. Hopefully their DIY Portfolio stays free for 1-2 years as they scale their business!

Awful from top to bottom

Their marketing is inaccurate. Calling their product an ETF ISA. No such thing exists. It’s a stocks and shares ISA. A small detail but not wanting to confuse a new generation of investors. I called them out on this inaccuracy and they just blocked me on instagram. I didn’t swear or was abusive. So it’s a bad sign that they seem immune to feedback in their marketing strategy Actual app itself is just so poor. A limited range of funds compared to Trading 212. But the biggest point for me is just how bloody long it takes to A. Get money out. 4-5 working days. B. You can’t make any changes between 14:30-19:30. C. Can’t make changes at all until your previous changes have settled. D. The settlement time when you have sold out of a fund. Again looking at 4-5 days settlement before you can even withdraw. Whereas Trading 212 is effectively instant settlement. Tried to cut it some slack as it is a fledging broker. But feel they’ve tried to take advantage of Trading 212 being closed. Opened a service and a product that’s woefully ill-equipped to compete with Freetrade and Trading 212 once they opened again with no list which they now have. I’ve been using their GIA for about 3 months and it’s been slow slow slow. I welcome developer response to see if they are capable of answering to criticism.

Developer Response ,

Hi James, thanks for your feedback and apologies you encountered issues on our Instagram page. We certainly do not want to block any customers, we want to hear from them and help customers resolve any issues they may have. Thank you for pointing out the incorrect name of the ISA, we have amended this and have measures in place to ensure it doesn't happen again. We are constantly improving our service and offering, the other points you mentioned have already been improved or we can give you an insight into how we work so you can understand why they work as they do. Please drop us an email at support@investengine.com and we will certainly be happy to help and explain more. Thanks again for the feedback and happy investing!

Flawed app prevents access to account

Hi, loved the idea and put quite a bit of money inti my account. Now deeply disappointed with app preventing me from accessing my money: Just updated the app (on the apps request), which now requires me to login and approve login request … with the app. I feel a buzz on the phone (which I suppose is the login-request-approve-message) but I receive no message. In the app I also see nothing appearing can ask for “resend” or click on “did not recive the request” which leads me to a messgae: please check the app on your phone.
Tried various things including reinstalling, re-giving all permissions in System Settings etc. To no avail, this is poor UX process at best. But it is for a finance app unacceptable to lock out people from their investments due to poor UX - this is taking a legal dimension now if the problem is jot resolved immediatley.

Developer Response ,

Hi! Sorry to hear you are disappointed with our app. We never prevent clients from accessing monies or their securities on their account. Could you please send a message to our support email support@investengine.com, so that we could look into your issue further?