Jumping on the bandwagon…

Coutts Invest is the latest direct platform to be launched by the Queen’s private bank and wealth manager Coutts & Co.  Here’s a summary of the new proposition.

End investors can open a basic ISA and a General Investment Account with a lump-sum investment of £500 and regular contributions starting at £50. Investors have access to five risk-rated portfolio funds to choose from, which are designed and managed by Coutts. These funds are invested in underlying passive products from the likes of Fidelity, Blackrock and Vanguard as well as ETFs.

The maximum service fee is 0.95% per year and includes the cost of underlying investments (it took several calls to ascertain that information). For investments of more than £250,000, the fee is 0.85% and those with more than £500,000 will pay 0.70%. The platform is only available to clients who have a current account with Coutts & Co, and to qualify for one of those, individuals must have at least £1m in investable assets.

Summary

This is a simple and restricted proposition for investors who are comfortable making their own decisions but are not interested (or perhaps not confident enough) in exchange-traded investments.  We would even go as far as suggesting that the proposition is too basic and simple for the sophisticated and wealthy audience Coutts attracts. The new platform can be used through the online banking portal so if the process is seamless and easy to use, it may hold some attraction for Coutts’ customers.  Has Coutts done enough? We’re not sure. We hope this is its opening gambit and there’s more in the pipeline.

We got in touch to find out more about the new offering, but to our surprise, most of the staff we spoke to were unaware of the new platform and couldn’t answer our questions…  As always when launching a new proposition, it pays to do PR inside as well as outside.

Article is accurate at date of writing.