InvestEngine offer a very simple and affordable route to investing, but is InvestEngine safe? Just how safe is your money with InvestEngine?
As investors we want our money to be safe. That goes without saying, and while no investment is immune from ups and downs, it is important to know that your investment is doing the best they can to protect your money and provide the security and reassurance that you deserve.
So is InvestEngine safe? What are InvestEngine doing to help you with your investing and keep you protected?
InvestEngine take a long term view for investing
InvestEngine’s whole focus is on long term investing. I like this. I’m a great believer in expanding your time frame as for as long as possible to smooth out the peaks and troughs of investing. In turn, hopefully, over a long period of time I will see my investments grow.
It’s not the only way to invest, of course, but I believe the simplest and safest way to invest is a long-term buy and hold strategy where I will invest in strong ETFs instead of trying to pick stocks. InvestEngine only offers ETFs going into 2023 so this suits my strategy perfectly.
InvestEngine is still young
One major attribute in the finance world that every institution must demonstrate is trust. Investors are rightly paranoid about how they can trust their providers. InvestEngine have to earn that trust in the same way some of the more established players have done in the past, and from that point of view, InvestEngine’s youth could count against them when considering if InvestEngine is safe.
That said, I was a very early adopter of InvestEngine when they came on the scene. I was satisfied that their platform was safe when I considered the following two points.
InvestEngine is properly regulated
InvestEngine is regulated here in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority. UK investors can be assured InvestEngine is safe, because it is regulated by a UK body and doesn’t have any complications of being regulated by a foreign entity where issues can be tricky to sort out in the case of any collapse.
InvestEngine take part in FSCS
Investments made with InvestEngine are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which protects deposits up to £85,000. This is a massive factor in deciding if InvestEngine is safe. Now this is not to say that your can’t lose on your investment. Investments can (and will) go up and down. What you are protected from is the eventuality where your provider can no longer meet their obligations if it fails.
There are other things to be mindful of when looking at whether your provider has you covered under the FSCS. Be sure to check the details around branding, the type of investment you are making and so on with your provider.
InvestEngine has excellent customer service
InvestEngine are prompt and courteous in their replies to queries. This is another good indicator that InvestEngine is safe for investing. Apart from anything else, it increases my confidence when customer service agents are able to confidently answer any questions I have.
InvestEngine is safe because customer money is ring-fenced
Here’s a quote from InvestEngine’s website:
We understand just how important it is to keep your investments and personal information secure at all times. Like many investment managers, we hold all of your money in pooled client bank accounts with a recognised bank and your investments in a pooled client account at CREST (operated by Euroclear UK and Ireland) which is segregated from the firms and custodian’s investments. Registration of your investments will be held in the name of InvestEngine Nominees Limited. This means we have no legal right to your investments and we cannot use it to cover any of InvestEngine’s obligations. In the unlikely event that either InvestEngine or Euroclear UK and Ireland goes bankrupt your money and investments will still be protected.
Investengine
This quote certainly appears to cover all eventualities and what will happen in the unlikely event InvestEngine was to fail.
I have been using InvestEngine for around 18 months and for the last tax year InvestEngine is where I have had my stocks and shares ISA. It’s why I think I am well placed to answer the question “Is InvestEngine Safe”.
I have found them to be very reliable in this time. Find out more about why I chose them in this article. There is a lot of competition in the investing space and while you can never be sure that InvestEngine will be around forever, I would have to say at this stage it looks unlikely to pose much of a risk to your investing.
How about comparing InvestEngine to Trading 212 – another hugely popular platform?