Is it Time to Move Investments Out of IE?

General
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Hi everyone,

I’m considering whether it’s time to move my investments out of InvestEngine. I’ve become increasingly concerned about a few things:

  • Lack of Platform Innovation
  • Sluggish Trade Execution
  • Limited Features vs Alternatives
  • Company Financial Stability

I’m not rushing to leave, but want a platform that’s innovating, financially stable, and offers modern features. Thoughts?

(Note: This post is also intended as customer feedback for IE — not meant to be purely negative, but hoping to start a constructive discussion.)

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I’d add poor customer service to that list.

I’m transferring my pension out to Trading212. IE haven’t responded to T212s initial request for the transfer for 3 weeks.

I’ve chased IE directly, and haven’t had any response for 4 days, despite the website saying “We aim to respond as quickly as possible, usually within a few hours.”

Reading this forum it appears service response times are poor. Feels like a lack of investment in the people needed to deal with customers.

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Instead of leaving you could allocate new money to a different platform.
I’d never be reliant on 1 platform anyway.

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been with IE for 3.5 years now and overall i have been happy.

personally (or luckily) i have never had any issues with customer service and cash isa’s have transfered in a good time.

recently i have read countless customer service enquiries and i find it astounding that folk are locked out/cant trade/long settlement issues which are really making me think twice about IE, hope its just a lack of staff and new cash added in this new financial year!

SIPP, appears to be a nightmare at drawdawn and having recently retired i have stopped adding to my pot, unsure what to do next, letting it ride for now.

i like the platform, website and interface with plenty of funds which suits my long term hold on here and periodically rebalanceing is pretty easy and clear to do.

has the ‘in specie’ issue been sorted? i got bored of reading about customer questions and false promises in 2024.

i also use T212 and lightyear and looked at robinhood and freetrade but didnt like them.

IE isnt perfect and when the few issues are sorted i think it will be one of the best overall.

just my opinion.

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Could you cite examples to reinforce the points you are raising? I’ve already raised my concerns with management regarding general performance. However, this is fortunately a growing UK business,

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It’s certainly making me worry reading everything happening lately while I have a large sum with IE. Seems they desperately need to hire more customer service agents for starters.

I am also sure it doesn’t do the company any good having “Is it time to move investments out of IE?” pop up in customers e-mails like it did mine this morning. I’d be pretty quick to be in here posting something reassuring (Not copy and paste or generic) if I was them.

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I really like the platform, how easy it is to invest in the proportions I want to and rebalance easily. But I’ve been feeling increasingly uneasy about IE and have started an ISA with Freetrade for new money.

The uneasiness comes from lots of worrying posts on here about poor or non existent customer service. Over a year ago IE withdrew their managed plans shortly after launching them. They kept saying they were working on them, but they still haven’t reappeared. It seems odd to withdraw a very new offering and then keep repeating bland statements that mean nothing. And this will be a big loss of income too.

Less worrying, but maybe an indication of the level of potential chaos or lack of direction is that Andy Prosser was doing weekly market updates on YouTube for a few weeks, then they suddenly stopped.

Overall I have a bad feeling and am too concerned to add more money.

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Hi -

I agree with Sal2022 (and have moved most of my GIA out this month, retain small SIPP for now).

Lack of platform innovation - that’s not a problem for me as I think a long term hold of ETFs lends itself to a low cost provider. What I would like to see is a simplification of the website - for example able to see ALL etf holdings in ALL portfolios in a simple linear format on one screen. And a portfolio option which is free form with no percentages or rebalancing.

Sluggish trade execution - again that’s not a problem for me as I think it supports long-term hold strategies. But weirdly it still feels quite frustrating and probably is not the best strategic decision from IE - I personally think they should migrate to real time etf purchases and sales.

Limited feature vs alternatives. Again not a problem for me so long as there a wide range of low cost etfs. The one feature that I think would be very useful (for a GIA) is having a comprehensive tax report at FYE (including overseas excess reportable income tables eg similar to that provided by AJBell).

Company Financial Stability. I agree with this on two aspects. Note however I must emphasise that I think holding investments here is fairly safe with segregated accounts etc.

My first concern re finance is I don’t quite see how IE is going to become profitable in the near future based on their current income streams. Does that mean they are hoping to be bought out? Then what happens re fees etc?

My second concern is how long they funded for the future. The fundings seems a bit opaque - the internet suggests something like crowdfunding, then 10m funding, then 14.5m Venture Capital funding (not sure if $ or £). And that the most recent VC funding may or may not be 5m in committed cash with the remainder available to IE based on some sort of VC criteria (VC may or may not include Tobin Capital).

Looking at their latest accounts from Companies House indicates a cash burn of £5m (or more) per year. So there is a possibility that unencumbered cash runs out in autumn of 2026, and then perhaps a further 2 years after that if additional funding is provided by the VC (ie meets required covenants/milestones). So there seems to be a possibility of a funding shortfall in the near future, which is not that huge of a problem but might mean some sort of delays for ETF holders before a different provider?

Part of the issue with the above is that this is all a bit speculative from me - there is a lack of information available. I think IE need to open up and be clear and specific about both funding and future profitability. An after-tax loss of £5.0m in 2024 and an after-tax loss of £10.0m in 2025 (for InvestEngine UK Ltd) is not reassuring.

Customer Support. I’ve been happy with it but I see a lot of people haven’t. The responses I have seen have been a bit guarded. I think response to customers need to be timely, detailed and specific. The lack of responses and generic blogs etc is slightly reserved (even a bit patronising, as we investors arnt ideots).

Conclusion

I like IE and hope it succeeds. I support its mission to promote long term low cost investing via ETFs. I do not think there is any substantial risk to investors’ actual segregated holdings. Perhaps with scale it will push into profitability / responsiveness. But it would be useful to have some clarity on these issues now.

Note that this is only my opinion here.

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Hi @Mark66, what are your views about Lightyear? I am reluctant to continue adding funds to IE given their current lack of clarity in anything lately, and shambolic customer support. I already use T212 for my cash ISA and created a pie for investing but haven’t used it yet. I have also looked at the AJ Bell legacy platform too, and I would consider paying a platform fee just to have better customer support (should I need it), but looking on Trustpilot and even they seem to have many 1 star reviews for poor customer service! It is like you have to simply go with the lesser of many evils and hope for the best.

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Hi @IEnow, you raised a lot of interesting and valid points. I have been with IE for over two years and have kept putting money in each month what I can afford. I have never had to use customer support because everything I have required from the site has worked, with the exception of direct debits, which are terribly slow and just awful (took almost ten days if you include a weekend, the time for them to process the payment and invest it). Hence, I no longer use this method.

Like you, I have a small SIPP with IE, which there isn’t a lot I can do with at the moment. But with everything that has been going on, I have considered moving my S&S ISA to another provider, but am put off by having the process stalled, with IE not playing ball and letting it go.

The future of IE is anyone’s guess. While their AUM has increased, I feel their team, and in particular, their support team has not. Not even sure there is a support team.

I agree with the real time etf purchases and sales, at least you have a better idea of what price you are getting. Whilst holding your money in IE should be safe, I think some people’s gripes is they can’t withdraw it (especially in a timely manner), or in-specie somewhere else because of ghost town customer support. I would hate to be stuck in limbo waiting for someone to reply to email-only support. I know they need to keep costs down but that is a terrible way to communicate regarding peoples investments because, for some, it has been a one-way only conversation. To just not reply to someone’s genuine questions and concerns about their money is simply not acceptable. It just isn’t. So, this is really where they need to step up a lot.

A low cost provider still needs to continue to innovate. And whilst they have made some changes with design and function, they are behind other competitors. But I do like the simplicity of the app and desktop version; it’s clean and basic, and for many that is enough.

IE has the potential to be one of the best platforms, especially with all the competition these days, but even the more established fintech/neobrokers such as T212, and legacy brokers such as HL and AJ Bell are riddled with customer support complaints. What makes IE so bad these days is what seems like their total disregard to help anyone, and this puts me off greatly.

I have a feeling my next ISA payment will be with either T212 or another platform, but the difficult choice is which?

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Very interesting thread. I think competition intensifying (from other providers and features) risk making IE look a bit old fashioned, which is somewhat ironic is my eyes.

Rightly or wrongly, I can’t help but feel that customer service has been scaled down. That or they have more customers but haven’t kept up with demand. It took about a week for someone to come back with regards to my issue but then once the issue was allocated it took about 24 hours between answers. There are a few problems with the beginning: a week means the situation may have already changed but also that their “within a few hours” template is extremely misleading and just them setting up their customers for disappointment, entirely of their own doing. No engineered customer journey should ever lead to that.

Coming back to features, what I had loved about IE is the Autoinvest where you can just send money straight to a pie and it’s automatically invested, but it’s done lateish the next day after funds are received. Looking around made me discover Lightyear who do this too, but they invest as soon as the money is received: my standing order arrived at 2am, money was invested when market opened the very same day. IE would have been 36 hours later. And so my favourite IE feature has now become old fashioned and clunky in my eyes, I say clunky because after you send money the app and email tell you they’re waiting for the money but you know they’ve had it because the amount is mentioned.

I hope they start speeding things up as Lightyear have shown me there is no need for any of this (and customer service responded within 24 hours to a query). Don’t fall behind even more, IE.

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Hi @Borderman - I seem to have ended up on a lot of platforms. For example I have an s&s isa pot with T212 and, personally, am totally happy with it. Seems almost too good to be true with low fees, interest on cash (until HMRC changes I guess), broad range of etfs/stocks. I’ve been with them over two years and I haven’t had any problems. They seem to be doing quite well financially as well.

Because it’s an isa (and thus no admin / taxes) I use T212 pies to mashup lots of etfs/funds/stocks to recreate investing strategies (4pillars, permanent, smallcap etc) with a wide range of securities. This probably doesn’t outperform holding a low cost global etf but its fun trying. And is only really feasible with zero-cost trades. You can do similar in IE with etfs but its a bit more cumbersome here. Which is actually a good thing in my opinion as it encourages buy, hold and forget.

Another I’m with is Lightyear (gia) and they seem to be getting better and better. They’ve revised their fee structure fairly recently so its quite competitive now. They are still adding to their offerings so there is not quite the range of etfs yet but won’t be long I think. Customer service seems reasonable. They also have a decent cash (mm) offering via their “vaults”. Not quite as smooth as T212 but getting there. Lightyear have, I believe, raised a reasonable amount of financing recently.

I still do like InvestEngine for a hold and forget ETF investment strategy, but I will see how things develop.

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IMO, lightyear suits my needs and is a slightly different to invest than IE and my opinions are not a comparison or slander to IE.

i buy stocks on lightyear and its user interface is different to T212 in a good way, they still have limit buy/sells and your whole portfolio is instantly visible as daily or all time which i like and your total is a graph line with only important highs/lows.

more and more stocks and etf’s are being added and their cash isa is 3.75%.

it is simple to move cash between GIA, cash isa and s+s isa and i find the website is a breeze to use, the app is a bit limited but still ok.

never had an issue with logging in/out and a small cash isa transfer from t212 to lightyear took 5 days.

a lot of their etf’s are in euro but more are being added in $ and £.

if i am honest i cant find anything bad to say about them.

plenty of reviews online or do what i did and put £100 into the GIA and test it out.

M

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Great insights in the comments. It’s just a shame InvestEngine aren’t engaging alongside us to clarify their strategy. I love the platform’s simplicity, but there are a few small modifications and operational tweaks that, in my opinion, would elevate it to new heights.

With InvestEngine pausing fees on new managed accounts, a significant portion of their monetisation now likely relies on retaining interest from uninvested cash to subsidise the free DIY model.

This structural hurdle highlights why the platform continues to post substantial pre-tax losses, as it faces the steep challenge of burning capital to acquire the massive scale needed to reach profitability.

According to their latest full audited financial accounts filed at Companies House, InvestEngine reported an annual loss after tax of £4.9 million; at the time of those figures, their accumulated losses over the life of the company sat at just over £27 million. They have stayed afloat by continually executing fresh equity crowdfunding and venture capital investment rounds to inject cash into the business.

It raises a valid question of how the business model remains viable on paused managed accounts, cash interest and equity injections alone, without aggressively cutting internal overhead (customer support) and transitioning to a leaner, AI-focused operational structure. In fairness, Revolut had similar operational challanges at the outset and look at them now. A case study for how it should be done.

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@Investengine_admin we would love to hear some feedback on these issues above to give some re assurance to your customers. @Investengine_admin @InvestEngine_Support

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Just to let you know I don’t believe the support one is genuine IE. Last time i posted an issue, they sent me a private message saying “we’ve created a ticket for you based from your post” and a dodgy link to a 3rd party website, not IE branded, they wanted me to install 3rd party software, it was so dodgy. They only had the details that I had posted on this forum.

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It ‘maybe’ these are scam accounts? Requires verification from IE to confirm authenticity.

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@AutumnLeaves They definitely have more customers based on people moving into IE from other platforms for various reasons, and increased AUM over the last year. But, if everything went smoothly, which is reality it doesn’t always, IE could still get by with a small customer support team and still reply to everyone. I think it is more likely they simply choose not too, or are very selective who they reply too. They don’t seem to care too much about bad reviews of Trustpilot either, giving the same boilerplate response of:

We are currently working through a higher-than-normal volume of enquiries, which has resulted in longer response times than we would like. While this is not the level of service we aim to provide, please be assured that our team is actively working to respond to all outstanding cases as quickly as possible.

I believe this is one such issue that is causing concern of late, probably more so than lack of platform innovation and sluggish trade executions. Where the company stands financially could also be something to think about.

I used to use Autoinvest but I turned it off and pay in every month manually; it’s done in a couple of minutes so I have no issues there. I didn’t set up a standing order as I decide which day after I get paid to put the money in - I usually pay myself first before bills etc.

I do agree that compared to its competitors, it could appear old fashioned and clunky as other offerings seem to have improved and/or new functionality. If set and forget is your thing, IE still has a place for that because that is, essentially, what it was built for.

@IEnow I only have IE and T212 but have looked into Lightyear. I like low-cost global EFTs and personally use VWRP, which they have (thankfully). In IE I use 5 funds altogether over two accounts, but they don’t have three of them (just my luck) one of which is CSH2, which is what I would have to use their vaults for I guess. As I only use ETFs for simple long-term investing, I haven’t gone into single stocks, but I can see why people would find it interesting to come up with unique strategies, if only for a bit of fun. I’m not that adventurous. It was the low-cost element and simplicity of ETF investing that initially drew me to IE. And when there’s no issues, IE are pretty good.

If only I had enough uninvested cash that I could park for the interest, that would be a fine thing; however, doubtful the HMRC changes on that issue will affect me personally.

@mark66 Five days for the cash ISA transfer was reasonably fast. I like my cash ISA in T212, and haven’t really utilised their S&S ISA yet, so reading people’s real world views on Lightyear is helpful. I recently saw a detailed youtube review from someone I have subscribed to for a long time, and it seems to tick all the boxes other than three ETFs I use in IE that they don’t have.

I have to remind myself that IE and Lightyear, although both fintechs, operate differently. Having looked into it a bit more I understand Lightyear is more European focussed with multiple countries, whereas IE is only UK based (but I believe both are headquartered in London).

@Sal2022 I haven’t looked into their accounts but £27m seems like a lot, in what 5 or so years! I don’t know if that is standard for fintech startups. Hasn’t Lightyear been around about the same amount of time?; I wonder how they differ regarding losses.

Also, I am kind of out of the loop as I don’t check here too often, but why did they stop or pause managed accounts? This was bringing money in, surely? Or was it? If their annual losses have an upward trend year on year, and more crowdfunding etc. is required just to stay afloat, this is not just a backwards step towards profitability, it’s falling off a cliff to your inevitable death. I know it can take a few years, but after five or more years the profitability horizon should be getting closer, not further away. Definitely food for thought.

Your last paragraph rings true though, how viable is IE in this current climate when people want to know their money is in the best possible hands, is accessible when they want it, and that support is there to help you when you need it? I am sure there are many thousands of happy IE customers, but the dissatisfied ones is on the rise. Something is going on, but IE seems to have forgotten how customer relations work.

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@AutumnLeaves These are definitely scam accounts. Support accounts certainly would not be listed as a “basic user”.

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Hi all, we’re seeing the activity on Community and want to be able to answer all of your questions and concerns as quickly as possible.

I want to outline that @investengine_support and @Investengine_admin are not legitimate InvestEngine accounts and we advise not to engage with them especially via DM. Our team is working to have these accounts removed and we will post further updates in a separate thread.

Any legitimate member of the InvestEngine team will have ‘Team InvestEngine!’ next to their name and the InvestEngine logo on their profile picture.
Please let us know if you see any other suspicious activity and we’ll continue to monitor the forums to keep you all safe.

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