Turning five in the investment industry is a tremendous milestone and these last five years have been a fantastic journey. Here’s an overview of what we’ve achieved as a business so far.
We’ve launched a range of investment products
Back in 2016, Wealthify only offered General Investment Accounts and Stocks and Shares ISAs. But over the last five years, we’ve expanded our product range and added new Plans to our offering.
We launched our Ethical Plans in August 2018, allowing our customers to invest in companies that do good. In February 2019, we then added Junior Stocks and Shares ISAs to our product range, so parents could start investing towards their child’s future. Just over a year later, we introduced Personal Pensions to help people take control of saving for their retirement. And that’s not all, we also created a Refer a Friend scheme that rewards customers for inviting their friends and family to join Wealthify.
As the company grows, we’re committed to continue providing customers with innovative products that will help them build their future wealth. Watch this space because more is coming!
We gave our app and website a makeover
Our Product, Design and Development Teams have been busy since we started, constantly making changes and improvements to our website and app to ensure we’re providing our customers with a platform that is intuitive, transparent, jargon-free, and simple to use. Not only have we simplified our web and app navigation, we’ve also added new features, such as in-app articles and a savings calculator that allows customers to see the impact of their choices when it comes to saving and investing.
All the changes we make to our website and app are customer-led, following feedback from users, surveys, or testing sessions. Our focus is to build a service that exceeds customer needs and expectations. We believe the power should be in our customers’ hands and we are committed to acting promptly to make sure you get the investment experience you deserve.
We became fully owned by Aviva
Aviva offered us initial support through a strategic investment in 2018 to help fund our journey, and in June 2020, we embarked on the next phase of our growth as Aviva took full ownership of Wealthify. As part of this change, Andrew Russell was appointed as our new Chief Executive Officer, replacing Richard Theo, who co-founded the company.
This change allowed us to continue to benefit from the strength and experience of Aviva, whilst remaining an independently run business – we still have the same mission built on our founding DNA: to make investing easy, accessible, and affordable for everyone.
We won a plethora of awards
In the last five years, our collection of awards has been growing at a spectacular rate. We were delighted to be voted ‘Best Investment Provider’ at the British Bank Awards 2020 and we’re hoping to repeat that success again this year. We also won ‘Best Online Investment Service’ at the Boring Money Investor Choice Awards 2020, which were voted by consumers. And this year, we managed to scoop a number of Boring Money Best Buys, including ‘Best Customer Service’, ‘Best Beginners ISA’, and ‘Best Sustainable ISA’. In addition, we’ve also recently won ‘Best Wealth Investment Platform’ at the Online Personal Wealth Awards 2021.
But it’s not just our service getting all the praise and accolades, it’s also our products. We are the proud winners of ‘Best Junior ISA’ at the Personal Finance Awards for the past two years in a row. And that’s not all - in 2019 and 2020, our Original and Ethical Plans were given a 5 Star rating from independent financial expert, Defaqto, based on our offering and the tools we’ve built to make investing easy and accessible to everyone.
We received a lot of praise from customers
For the last five years, customer feedback has been a driving force behind what we do and we’re happy to say that our customers are our biggest advocates. They regularly praise the simplicity of our platform as well as the service we deliver, including our industry-leading customer service and communication. And we’re extremely proud to be rated as Excellent on Trust Pilot with a score of 4.6/5. If you’re using Wealthify and love the platform, why not leave your own review here: https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/wealthify.com.
As a business, we recognise the importance of feedback and we will continue to use it to empower our customers and make a positive difference in their financial lives.
We built strong relationships with partners
Five years ago, we joined the Fintech family, and throughout the years, we’ve made some valuable partnerships with companies that are positively changing the financial landscape. In April 2018, we joined forces with mobile-only challenger bank, Starling, to give their users easy access to our investment products via their in-app Marketplace. Then in October 2018, we partnered with Yolt and announced our in-app integration allowing our customers to view their investments within the smart thinking money app.
Several other partnerships followed, and not just with Fintech firms, but also with more traditional and established institutions. In November 2020, we announced our partnership with UK high street bank, TSB, giving millions of customers the opportunity to invest using our simple and jargon-free platform.
We expanded the team
Wealthify started with just three co-founders, Richard Theo, Michelle Pearce-Burke, and Richard Avery-Wright. But the company has rapidly grown over the years, and we now employ more than 50 people with further growth planned over the rest of 2021.
So, if you fancy working for a company that is striving to make a difference, check out our open vacancies here: https://www.wealthify.com/careers.
We provided our customer with positive returns
As a company, our aim isn’t just to make investing easy, we also want to help our customers’ money do more, offering the potential of higher returns compared to traditional savings accounts. Our highly experienced Investment Team have spent the last five years optimising our customers’ Plans so they could enjoy positive returns.
And it has paid off! Both our Original and Ethical Plans have delivered double digit returns since inception, with our best performing Plan (Original Adventurous) enjoying an overall performance of 47% at the end of the five years. If you want to know more about our five-year results, check out our latest performance update: https://www.wealthify.com/blog/5-years-of-strong-returns.
The table below shows our simulated* annual performance figures for our Original Plans, from Cautious to Adventurous, between February 2016 and February 2021, after all fees have been taken. 
We successfully adapted to the new normal
In five years, a lot of life-changing events have unfolded – if you want a little refresher of everything that has happened in the markets since 2016, we’ve got the perfect blog for you here: https://www.wealthify.com/blog/2016-2021-5-years-in-the-markets. But if there’s one event that has truly shaken the world, it’s the Covid-19 pandemic.
At a business level, our operations were minimally impacted, and we managed to adapt quickly, with the majority of our team still working from home a year later. And despite the remote working situation, we have continued to deliver a robust service and look after your money with the same security and data protection standards.
The pandemic didn’t just change the way we work, it also had a huge impact on markets, but our Investment Team have worked tirelessly in these turbulent times to ensure your money continues to work as hard as it can.
We’re now looking ahead
We might be celebrating five years of achievements, but we’re even more excited to look ahead. We feel passionately about inspiring anyone to build their future wealth and more than ever, we are committed to making investing easy, affordable, and accessible. Our focus is to provide as many people as possible with an investment platform that lets them take control of their financial lives and lead the life they’ve always envisioned.
*‘Simulated’ returns are so named as they are based on the performance of a model which identically mirrors the decisions we take on customers’ Plans. It is based on an account size that is over £500 and assumes that our maximum Wealthify fee (0.70% from 2016 to December 2019 and 0.60% from December 2019) is taken, as well as underlying fund costs. Individual customer returns may deviate slightly from the model figures, particularly those customers who may have added to or withdrawn from their Plans throughout the year or have a different fee rate.
Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.
The tax treatment depends on your individual circumstances and may be subject to change in the future.
Please remember the value of your investments can go down as well as up, and you could get back less than invested.
