If you’ve started or are thinking about starting a Plan with Wealthify, then you may be wondering what our ‘suitability’ questions are all about. While we’d love to open the doors to everyone, as both a regulated and responsible company, we need to check that investing, and the level of risk that our investment Plans offer, is the right option for you and your current circumstances.
Why do I need to take suitability?
As part of our regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority, we’re required to ask all our customers suitability questions. But it’s also more than that, as these questions help us put your best interests first and offer you the best service for your needs. This is important because when you invest – whether with us, another provider or by yourself – you’re taking a risk, as your investment can go down and up in price and you could get back less than you put in.
These suitability questions give us an insight into whether or not investing is right for you, based on your attitude to risk and your current financial situation. While we try to make investing easy for everyone to do, we also want to make sure it’s the right option at the right time for you.
What does suitability check?
Some of the questions in our suitability assessment may seem a bit personal, but that’s because we need to find out about your financial situation, your investment objectives, and how you feel about taking a risk with your money.
It’s really important that you answer all these questions honestly and accurately. We don’t judge you on how much money you make, your spending habits, or anything else, we’re simply trying to understand your money situation and make sure that you can invest what you want based on your answers.
You only have two chances
To maintain the accuracy and legitimacy of the test we only allow two attempts. So, it’s a good idea to take your time, answer honestly, and fill in every question. If you make a mistake or answer something incorrectly on your first attempt, then you can go back and fix it.
If you’ve already answered the questions twice, you’ll need to wait three months before you can do it again.
We know that this can be frustrating and disappointing, especially if you don’t understand where or why you failed. Remember, the test is not looking at how much you intend to invest, or even how much you earn on its own merit, it looks at incomes vs outgoings, debt vs savings, and your attitude to risk as a whole. This means that the outcome is based on a combination of these factors. As we don’t provide advice, we’re not able to review the outcome of the test for you or let you know what specifically caused you to fail.
Finding the best investment style for you
Sometimes what we think we want and what we actually want aren’t quite the same thing. For example, you may think that our Adventurous Plan is what you want to go for, but your answers could show that you’re better suited to our Confident Plan.
There’s a couple of questions that ask about how you feel about financial risk and reward. This isn’t some “gotcha” to steer you away from your original option, but rather it helps you find the best investment style for you based on your questions.
It’s worth saying that you should also be prepared to take a little bit of risk. Although we’d all like to see our money going up in one long, continuous line, unfortunately, the real world doesn’t quite work like that and you will experience a bit of volatility (ups and downs) along the way as investing is risk-based and you may not always get back what you invest.
What can I do if I fail twice?
If you fail twice, then you’ll need to wait six months before you’re able to take our suitability test again.
In the meantime, you may want to seek independent financial advice. They will be able to offer help and planning to get your finances in order and put you in a better position for investing in the future. If you do have spare money right now, it could also be worth building up your emergency cash savings. For help and more information, please visit the Money Advice Service.
Wealthify does not offer advice or personal recommendations, if you’re not sure if investing is right for you then please speak to a financial advisor. The value of your investments may go down as well as up and you could get back less than you originally invested. Tax rules can change, benefits depend on circumstances. Wealthify is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
