Plan & Invest : FAQs
What is Plan & Invest?
Our terms provide the most comprehensive information about how Plan & Invest works. They’re written in plain English and cover more detail than we can provide here.
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A US person is a resident of the US, a US citizen or is otherwise subject to US tax on non-US income and gains (for example if you are a US ‘Green Card’ holder).
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There are several ways to apply for an account.
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The service is spilt into 3 steps – Planning, Investing and On-going planning.
Step 1: Plan
You’ll go through a detailed planning stage online. We’ll ask you about:
- Why you want to start investing and if you have a specific goal
- Your finances
- How you feel about taking risk
- What you already know about investing
- Whether you’ve used your ISA allowance.
Using the information you give us, we’ll work out if investing is right for you, how much you can afford to invest straight away and then on a regular basis. We’ll also give you a proposed investment strategy and tell you which accounts we’d open for you to start investing. Finally, we’ll also show you how much we think your investments could be worth in the future and the likelihood we think you have of achieving your goal.
Then we’ll create your personalised Investment Plan. It will summarise everything outlined above and will provide further information about how we’ll manage your investments, how we track performance of your investments against a benchmark, a detailed cost breakdown and some detail about investing risk.
There’s no upfront cost to go through step 1.
Step 2: Invest
Once you have your Investment Plan and you’re happy to proceed, we’ll set up the accounts you need, initiate an ISA transfer (if that’s what you’d like to do) and set up any payments you’re making into Plan & Invest.
From there, we’ll make the initial investments we set out in your investment strategy and our team of investment managers will monitor their performance and make any adjustments they think are necessary. By making these ‘buy and sell’ decisions on your behalf, our team will be doing all the hard work for you (see – Can I change the investment decisions being made for me?).
You can make regular or one-off payments from as little as £100, provided we think you can afford to based on what you told us in step 1.
You’ll be able to track the performance of your investments anytime in your Plan & Invest Hub in Online Banking or via the Barclays app.
Step 3: On-going planning
We need to make sure your Investment Plan remains right for you so we’ll ask you to complete an annual review by repeating parts of step 1 at least once every 12 months from the date of your last Plan. Every year we’ll ask you about your finances and once every three years we’ll ask you about how you feel about taking investment risk.
If your personal circumstances have changed, especially if it’s related to your financial circumstances and/or your goal, you can retake the planning steps and complete the questions in the affordability calculator at any time.
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You can choose from one of the goals below or you can choose to just invest.
Home
Retirement (see – What account types are available?)
Education
Family
Something else.
At the moment, you can only pick one goal so pick the most important one to you. When you pick a goal, we’ll ask you when you want to reach it and you’ll also have the opportunity to set a target amount (although you don’t have to). For example, your goal could be to have £100,000 in 15 years’ time to put towards your home.
When you set a target amount, we will tell you the likelihood we think you have of reaching it.
If your goal is retirement you should bear in mind that we don’t currently offer a pension or a Lifetime ISA. If you’re saving for retirement and you’re comfortable locking money away until you’re at least 55 then you should consider a pension.
However, if you’re under 40 and you’re comfortable locking money away until you’re 60, then you should also consider a Lifetime ISA first. This is because the tax relief provided by the government will reduce the cost of investing for you and your employer may make contributions to your pension. You can still consider investing with Plan & Invest as a supplement to paying into a pension or a Lifetime ISA.
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At the moment we offer an ISA and an Investment Account.
Our Plan & Invest ISA is a flexible stocks and shares ISA which means the money you pay in is invested according to your investment strategy. It is flexible because you can withdraw and replace the money you’ve paid in, as long as it is within the same tax year, without using up any more of your ISA allowance.
Because Plan & Invest is a managed service, you don’t get to choose the accounts. We make that decision based on what you tell us about how you’ve used your ISA allowance for the current tax year.
We always open an Investment Account alongside an ISA so that payments above your ISA allowance can go into it and be invested from there.
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No. Plan & Invest accounts can only be opened in one person’s name but you can use a joint current account to make payments into Plan & Invest.
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Plan & Invest is only able to accept transfers from cash ISAs and stocks and shares ISAs.
Transfers can only be made into Plan & Invest in cash and they must be for the full value of the ISA. This means that, if you want to transfer a stocks and shares ISA, your investments will be sold and the cash transferred to us by your old provider. You may have to pay transaction costs when investments are sold.
At the moment, we can only accept full transfers – not partial transfers. We expect this to change soon and will let everyone know when it does.
See – What should I consider before deciding to transfer an ISA?
Always bear in mind that tax rules might change in the future and their effect on you will depend on your individual circumstances.
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There are a lot of things to weigh up before you decide to transfer. Only you can decide if a transfer is right for you. Much will depend on the type of ISA you have – is it flexible? Have you used that flexibility in the current tax year? Is it a cash ISA or a stocks and shares ISA?
You should also find out about any charges, exit penalties, benefits you may lose if you transfer to us.
Our Plan & Invest ISA is a flexible stocks and shares ISA which means the money you pay in is invested according to your investment strategy. It is flexible because you can withdraw and replace the money you’ve paid in, as long as it is within the same tax year, without using up any more of your ISA allowance.
We are only able to accept ISA transfers in cash. This means that, if you want to transfer a stocks and shares ISA, your investments will be sold and the cash transferred to us by your current provider. So, there will be a period of time when you are ‘out of the market’ and would not benefit from any gains nor suffer any losses that occur over that period.
Of course, if you no longer own these investments, you’ll no longer receive any dividends or income from them. In the case of shares, you also won’t be able to participate in corporate actions nor use shareholder benefits.
We’ll use the cash to buy the investments we outline in your personalised Investment Plan which are unlikely to be the same ones you’re currently invested in so you should also consider how your current investments are performing. You may have to pay transaction costs when your current provider sells your investments.
If your ISA is flexible and you’ve made a withdrawal(s) that totals more than you’ve paid in during the current tax year, you can only repay that money into that ISA using your current provider. If you wish to use your full allowance(s) in the current tax year, you should repay the amount you’ve withdrawn into your ISA with your current provider before you transfer.
Always bear in mind that tax rules might change in the future and their effect on you will depend on your individual circumstances.
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Plan & Invest is a new type of investing service. Robo-advisors traditionally provide automated, algorithm-driven financial planning services with little to no human supervision. However, Plan & Invest is different because it’s accessed digitally (via Online Banking and the Barclays app) but with real people managing your investments behind the scenes.
Because most of the interaction between our customers and us is done online, we’re able to keep costs down and at the same time give you the flexibility of using Plan & Invest whenever, wherever it suits.
Our experts do use algorithms but there are always real people, not computers, overseeing your investments and their performance. In fact, it’s the same team who manage investments for our customers with large sums to invest.
The traditional name for this type of service is discretionary portfolio management. What this means is that our investment managers make the buy and sell decisions without having to refer back to you, the customer, for every transaction. However, we can only do this within pre-agreed parameters.
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Plan & Invest does not offer investment advice. It is a digital wealth management service providing discretionary portfolio management, which means we make all the investment decisions on your behalf.
We ask you to complete an online questionnaire so we understand things like what you are looking to achieve, how you feel about risk and so that we can work out how much you can afford to invest. We’ll then create a personalised Investment Plan for you which will include a proposal for the account(s) we’ll open on your behalf (Investment ISA and/or an Investment Account) and the investments we believe are right for you over the long term. The investments we choose for you come from a range of pre-selected funds.
We take all the responsibility for the decisions about what to buy and sell which means, if you choose to proceed and open a Plan & Invest account, you will be accepting it in total. You can’t pick elements of it.
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Only you can decide if this is the right service for you. However, if you’ve got any questions about how the service works, then please give us a call.
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There is a service minimum of £5,000. You can meet this by paying in cash and/or transferring a cash ISA or a stocks and shares ISA.
In addition, as part of the planning step, we’ll ask you about your finances so we can work out how much you can afford to invest. You’ll only be able to invest an amount that leaves you with an emergency cash reserve equivalent to three months’ outgoings.
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We do ask people to be willing to invest for a minimum of five years as investing is all about playing the long game and giving your money time to grow.
However, you can withdraw your money at any time if you need to but you should always consider the implications of making a withdrawal either from an ISA or an Investment Account.
Any gains on investments within and ISA are tax-free so to try and retain the tax benefit of your Plan & Invest ISA, we would sell investments from your Investment Account first. If you want to withdraw more than is in your Investment Account, we would then sell investments in your ISA.
The Plan & Invest ISA is flexible which means that you can withdraw money and pay it back in during the same tax year without using any additional allowance.
There are no penalties for withdrawing your money. However, there may be Capital Gains Tax to pay when investments from an Investment Account are sold. Also, if you make a full withdrawal from an account, we will sell your investments and transfer the cash to your nominated bank account after deducting 0.2% of the value of the account. We retain this 0.2% to cover any outstanding service costs that may be due. In most cases, these costs will be accounted for within 60 days and then we’ll return any remaining amount.
Always bear in mind that tax rules might change in the future and their effect on you will depend on your individual circumstances.
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The overall, on-going annual cost for Plan & Invest ranges from 1.20% to 1.40% p.a. (per annum) and is split into two types of costs – service costs and product costs.
Service costs
Service costs are calculated as a percentage of the value of your accounts (including any cash). This is broken down into three separate costs: Planning cost, Investing cost and Safekeeping cost.
Planning cost – 0.25%: This covers making sure that your Investment Plan always includes the strategy we believe is the best way we can help you achieve your goal, based on your financial circumstances.
Investing cost – 0.50%: This covers the management of the investments within your account(s). When needed, we’ll adjust the overall mix of your investments in response to changes in market conditions or to reflect any changes to your personal circumstances. It also covers any dealing costs when we buy or sell investments on your behalf.
Safekeeping cost – 0.20%: This covers the safekeeping of your investments, the regular valuation and reporting of your account(s) and the collection of dividends, distributions and interest payments.
These costs are calculated as a percentage of the value of your account(s) (including any cash) and charged monthly.
Product costs
Product costs are related to the products you’re invested in e.g. funds. You may be invested in multiple funds and each one will have its own on-going costs to cover fund management fees and transaction charges.
The total product costs applicable to your Investment Plan will depend on which funds we select and the amount or ‘weight’ we put in each one. Different funds have different costs and could range from 0.25% to 0.45%.
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Once you’re a customer, you’ll be able to track the performance of your investments whenever you want in Online Banking and the Barclays app. We’ll also keep you updated with quarterly statements. Your statements and any other communications will be uploaded to ‘your statements and documents’ in Online Banking and the Barclays app.
Each year we’ll ask you to complete step 3: On-going planning (see – How does it work?) so that we can make sure you’re always invested in a way that’s right for you.
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Yes. See - Can I contact someone when I need to?
How does the investing work?
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Our investment approach can be divided into 4 main phases:
- Building a view on the markets
- Adjusting the view to your personal circumstances and risk appetite
- Selecting the right investments for you
- Rebalancing and monitoring your investments.
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Our senior investment professionals select the most appropriate mix of investments to help you meet your long-term goal.
They use their experience at interpreting the market conditions and their ability to build robust quantitative models to support their thinking.
You can listen to our investment podcast ‘Word on the Street’ to keep yourself updated about the market and our strategy.
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Understanding your attitude towards investment risk is important. It’s not about how much you can afford to invest, but rather it’s about how you’ll feel about taking investment risk. In other words, you may be very financially comfortable and be able to afford to invest a significant amount. But if the thought of watching that investment fluctuate in value gives you sleepless nights, then investing probably isn’t right for you. That’s what we mean when we talk about your attitude to risk.
Everybody is different and so to help us understand how you feel about investment risk, we use a simple questionnaire, designed by our behavioural experts, that’s been used by our existing customers for many years. We ask about your investment goal and time horizon, your financial circumstances, your existing investment knowledge (if any) and your personality.
We use the output of this to tell you if investing is even right for you and then to develop an investment strategy in line with the level of risk we believe is right for you.
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Your money will be invested in a range of different funds. The combination of funds we select will match the investment strategy that’s right for you, which is laid out in your personalised Investment Plan. The funds will themselves invest in a range of different industries, geographic regions and types of investments such as shares or bonds. We do this to make sure you don’t have all your eggs in one basket.
We use regulated investment funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and we may invest in a mixture of both for you.
Regulated investment funds are professionally managed by a fund manager and regulated. The fund manager pools your money with other investors’ money to buy or sell the underlying investments held by the fund. The value of the fund reflects the value of the underlying investments; as their values rise or fall, the value of the fund will rise or fall. The overall size of the fund will grow or shrink as investors buy and sell.
ETFs are listed regulated investment funds where the fund manager makes investment decisions typically to replicate the returns of a specific market index as much as possible. ETFs are also bought and sold like shares on a stock exchange so their price can change throughout the day.
We use active management wherever we believe it will generate additional returns without changing the level of risk that’s appropriate for you over the long-term.
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Here we outline the process we use to choose the funds for your Plan & Invest investment strategy.
Selecting an active fund – one that aims to outperform the market compared to a specific benchmark such as the FTSE 100 – involves making a judgment on the investment manager responsible for the investments in that fund. Here at Barclays, we have a defined process for manager selection.
Our process is formal, structured and repeatable to create comparable data points across institutions and fund managers. But our process is also informed by a philosophy that guides our collective judgement on a manager.
Our manager due diligence process can be divided into two distinct steps: investment due diligence, and operational due diligence. The first aims to value a fund’s likelihood of future investment success. The second looks at business and operational risks. By this we mean the business resources and processes needed to support the investment activities and operational know-how needed for the manager to execute and sustain the investment strategy.
Our due diligence process is not a one-off or ad hoc exercise. We are constantly monitoring funds and meet with the managers of the funds at least every six months. We also receive formal reporting at least quarterly. And, if our view of the outlook for a fund changes, we will stop investing in it.
There’s more information available about our selection process, if you’d like to know more.
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ESG funds incorporate environmental (E), social (S) and/or governance (G) considerations into the investment process. We don’t offer ESG funds at the moment but we do take ESG considerations into account when selecting fund managers.
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Rebalancing means bringing your investments back in line with the asset allocation that’s right for you at a specific time. For example, after five years of investing, the investment strategy we’ve given you might state you should have an asset allocation of 50% emerging market equities and 50% bonds. However, over those five years the equities have performed well and they actually make up 70% of your investments.
This would be out of line with your asset allocation and would need to be rebalanced. In which case, we’d sell some equities and buy some bonds to bring things back into line. This is an over-simplified version but hopefully it explains the principle.
In reality, we look at your investments every month to make sure they’re in line with your personal circumstances and risk appetite.
Any sale of investments we make as part of rebalancing will be treated as a disposal for Capital Gains tax purposes. Always bear in mind that tax rules might change in the future and their effect on you will depend on your individual circumstances.
In addition, occasionally, our experts implement adjustments to the original mix of your investments to take advantage of any short-term market opportunities that arise.
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There are a couple of scenarios where we’ll use a glidepath in your investment strategy.
A glidepath is a pre-defined formula that changes your asset allocation (the mix of investment types you hold) over time.
If you have a target date for your investing goal, we’ll decrease your exposure to riskier investment types such as equities as that target date approaches. At the same time, we’ll invest in more stable investments such as bonds so that the returns you’ve already made are safeguarded, to an extent, from market fluctuations.
We’ll also use a glidepath at the start of your investing journey if you’re new to investing and/or we think investing might make you nervous (known as low risk composure technically). When we do this, we’ll start you off at a lower level of risk in the early years and then gradually adjust your asset allocation to include a greater proportion of riskier investments.
We only ever use glidepaths that are in line with your objectives and what we believe is right for you overall.
If your goal is just to invest, we’ll simply manage your investments based on the level of risk we believe is right for you.
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Because this is a new service, we can’t show any historical performance yet, but we are working on this and it will be coming soon.
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Yes. See - What type of investing service is this?
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No. When you use Plan & Invest, you’re agreeing to allow our team of experts to manage your investments on your behalf. This will always be done according to your investment strategy.
However, we do ask you to update us with information on your investment goals and your financial situation so we always make sure you’re invested in a way that’s right for you (see - What is the annual review and how does it work?)
You can see the investments we’ve made for you and their performance anytime in your Plan & Invest Hub in Online Banking and the Barclays app.
In your quarterly statements you’ll also be able to compare their performance against the benchmark we set out in your personalised Investment Plan.
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If you receive any dividends from your investments, we’ll use the money to pay our costs, to build up cash in your account(s) or it will be invested.
Getting started
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At step 4 in the online journey, we’ll show you the investment strategy that we’ll use for you if you decide to proceed to invest with us. It will show you the combination of investment types we’ll invest in on your behalf, and how that combination may change over time (see - What are glidepaths?).
Then, in step 5, we’ll work out which accounts we’ll open for you (ISA and/or Investment Account) to make the most of your ISA allowance.
In step 6, we’ll show you how we think your investments will perform over time. If you’ve set up a specific goal with a target amount, we’ll tell you how likely we think it is that you’ll reach your goal.
We’ll then give you your personalised Investment Plan. It pulls together all the information we’ve already given you, plays back what you’ve told us and gives more detail about the investment strategy we’ve chosen for you. This is yours to keep – you can download and save it and it will be uploaded to your statements and documents in Online Banking and the app within 48 hours.
Once you have your Plan, you can either proceed to invest or walk away.
If you do proceed to invest, we’ll take you through the steps to open the account(s) we’ve selected for you (ISA and/or Investment Account). You can also set up one-off as well as regular payments and initiate an ISA transfer at this point.
Ongoing service
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With any investing there’s never any guarantee that they will increase in value, and they might actually fall in value meaning you’d get back less than you invested. However, even allowing for ups and downs in performance, in the long term the overall value of your investments is expected to increase.
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No you can’t. See – What type of service is this?
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You’ll always be able to see how your investments are performing in your Plan & Invest Hub in Online Banking and the Barclays app (unless your account(s) is in safekeeping) and we’ll also provide statements every quarter. We’ll also let you know if anything has changed with your goal likelihood once a quarter.
In addition, we can keep you up to date with all our latest thinking on market trends and what that means for our investment strategies.
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Yes we do. Read more about this service.
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At the end of each tax year we’ll provide you with a Consolidated Tax Certificate (CTC). It’s a summary of the income returns you've received on your investments and shows any tax that’s been deducted at source from the dividends you’ve received.
You can use the information in the CTC to help you complete your Self-Assessment tax return.
CTCs are issued for Investment Accounts (and SIPPs), but not for Investment ISAs because any returns you receive within an ISA are tax-free. You’ll find it in ‘your statements and documents’ in Online Banking and the Barclays app.
We don’t currently provide separate Capital Gains Tax Reports however you can see the gains and losses from your investments in your quarterly statements.
Always bear in mind that tax rules might change in the future and their effect on you will depend on your individual circumstances.
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If you change your mind, you can close your account(s) at any time. All you need to do is call us on 0333 202 75331, Monday – Friday 09:00 – 17:00. Our team will talk you through the process, including how we’ll handle any income received and outstanding costs due after your account has been closed. They’ll also go over potential tax and ISA allowance implications that you should consider.
If you change your mind within the first 14 days then we will:
For an Investment Account: Pay back any uninvested cash without deducting any costs (even in the unlikely event that we’ve already charged costs). If we’ve already bought investments, we’ll sell them and pay you back whatever they are worth on the day we sell them. That might be more or less than initially invested.
For an ISA: Pay back any uninvested cash without deducting any costs (even in the unlikely evert that we’ve already charged costs). We’ll hold the proceeds from the sale of any investments in the ISA until you tell us to either close it or transfer to another provider. In which case our safekeeping costs will apply.
If your circumstances change then we’d also like to know so that we can make sure you remain invested in a way that’s right for you. You can update your affordability information at any time from your Plan & Invest Hub in Online Banking and the Barclays app (See– What is the annual suitability review and why is it important?).
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At least once a year, from the date of your last Investment Plan, we’ll ask you to review your financial circumstances to make sure it’s still right for you. We’ll let you know when this is due and all you have to do is hit the ‘Update’ button next to your affordability information on the ‘Payments’ tab in your Plan & Invest Hub in Online Banking or the Barclays app.
Once every three years, we’ll also ask you to re-answer the questions about how you feel about taking investment risk.
Once you’ve completed the annual review, a new personalised Investment Plan will be created. If nothing has changed, we’ll continue to manage your investments as before.
However, if we change your Investment Plan, for example by proposing a new investment strategy or changing your maximum monthly payment, you’ll have to agree to continue based on the revised Investment Plan.
If you don’t agree with the revisions to your Investment Plan, it’s likely your investments will be moved to safekeeping.
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At the moment, no you can’t change your goal type e.g. change from home to education goal.
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You can ask us to make a full withdrawal via your Plan & Invest Hub. There are no penalties for withdrawing your money. However, when you make a full withdrawal, we will sell your investments and transfer the cash to your nominated bank account after deducting 0.2% of the value of the account. We retain this 0.2% to cover any outstanding service costs that may be due. In most cases, these costs will be accounted for within 60 days and then we’ll return any remaining amount.
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Yes. You will receive a statement every quarter (x4 per year). They will be available in ‘Your statements and documents’ in Online Banking and the Barclays app.
They contain details about things like performance, transactions and the service costs you’ve incurred. In your fourth quarterly statement each year, we’ll also provide details about the costs that have been charged by the fund managers of the funds you’re invested in.
You can request an ad-hoc statement at any time by calling us. It will cover the period from the start of the current quarter up to the date of the request.
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Plan & Invest is a digital service for customers who want professional help to invest and who are happy to make decisions about investment services on screen without receiving paper documents in the post. You’ll receive all important documents via Online Banking and the Barclays app. Occasionally we’ll get in touch about your investments; we’ll do this by email.
If you prefer to have paper documents to help you make these decisions, then Plan & Invest is not right for you and you should not proceed further.
However, we can provide large print, Braille and audio versions of important documents upon request. You can do this by calling us on 0333 202 75331, Monday – Friday 09:00 – 17:00.
Support and complaints
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We hope that no customer feels the need to complain but we welcome the opportunity to put things right. Find out how you can make a complaint.
Current cash incentive offer – 1 March to 10 May 2022
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To be eligible you must:
- Open your first Plan & Invest ISA or GIA account(s) during the Offer period between 00:01 BST on the 1st March 2022 and 23:59 BST on the 10th May 2022 inclusive; and
- You have 90 days to net fund (cash paid in, minus cash withdrawn during that period) your account to a minimum of £5,000 therefore making yourself eligible for the incentive payment. If you have requested a Stocks & Shares ISA transfer, you will have 90 days to fund your account after all eligible transfers complete. Market movements and any Plan & Invest fees paid will not be considered when calculating eligibility of the cash incentive.
Please see below some customer examples of eligibility:
Customer A opens a new Plan & Invest account during the Promotional Period. They pay £5,000 cash into their account and transfer £10,000 into their ISA within the first 90 days of opening the account. The customer has funded to a total of £15,000 and will be eligible to receive the £100 incentive payment.
Customer B opens a new Plan & Invest account during the Promotional Period. They pay £5,000 cash into their account within the first 90 days of opening the account and withdraw £1000. As the net balance of £4,000 is below the minimum transfer/funding value of £5,000 – the customer is not eligible for a cash incentive payment.
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No unfortunately you’re not. The offer is only available to customers who are new to Plan & Invest and they their open first account(s) during the dates listed above.
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No. The offer is for us to pay you, only ever once, £100 in the circumstances set out in question one. It doesn’t matter how many payments you make to reach the £5,000 minimum.
The offer also doesn’t increase if you pay in, or transfer, more than £5,000 within 90 days of opening your account.
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No. As part of the planning process, we may recommend you open a Plan & Invest ISA and an Investment Account, or just an Investment Account, depending on what you tell us about how you’ve used your annual ISA allowance. In either case the offer is for us to pay you, only ever once, £100 in the circumstances set out in question one.
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No. We don’t match competitors’ campaigns.
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Once you’ve gone through the planning process to create your personalised Investment Plan, you have 30 days to decide whether you want to accept it and proceed to invest with us. Your Plan is saved during this time and you can come back to it at any point.
If you started your application during the period of the offer, but completed the account opening process afterwards, you’re still eligible for the offer provided you then pay in, or transfer, £5,000 within 90 days.
Previous 1% Cashback offer terms (valid from 7 October to 30 November 2021 – New customer offer only)
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The 1% cash incentive payment will be based on the total amount of cash paid or transferred into your Plan & Invest account(s) during the first 90 days of the account being open, minus any cash withdrawals made during the same period. The total cash incentive will be calculated at the end of the first 90 days of the account being open. Market movements and any Plan & Invest fees paid will not be considered when calculating the cash incentive. Please see below some customer examples of eligibility:
- Customer A opens a new Plan & Invest account during the Promotional Period. They pay £5,000 cash into their account and transfer £10,000 into their ISA within the first 90 days of opening the account. The customer will be eligible for a £150 (1% of £15,000) cash incentive payment.
- Customer B opens a new Plan & Invest account during the Promotional Period. They pay £5,000 cash into their account within the first 90 days of opening the account and withdraw £1000. As the net balance of £4,000 is below the minimum transfer/funding value of £5,000 – the customer is not eligible for a cash incentive payment.
- Customer C opens a new Plan & Invest account during the Promotional Period. They transfer £10,000 into their account but the transfer takes 30 days and completes after the Promotional Period ends. The client will still have 90 days to fund their account from the date of opening their account. The customer will be eligible for a £100 (1% of £10,000) cashback payment. As the client has 90 days to fund, the time taken to transfer will delay the cash incentive payment but the client remains eligible and will receive their £100 payment.
- Customer D opens a new Plan & Invest account during the Promotional Period. They pay £300,000 into their account and make no further top up payments. The customer will be eligible for a £2000 cash incentive payment, as 1% of £300,000 exceeds the Cashback Cap.
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Yes. The maximum cashback amount you can earn with this incentive is £2,000 (the ‘Cashback Cap’).
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No unfortunately you’re not. The incentive is only available to customers who are new to Plan & Invest and open their first account(s) between the dates listed above.
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No. You’ll receive one payment, which will be based on the total amount you’ve paid into your account within 90 days of opening it, minus any cash withdrawals made during the same period. Market movements and any Plan & Invest fees paid will not be considered when calculating the cashback. It doesn’t matter how many payments you make to reach the £5,000 minimum.
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No. As part of the planning process, we may recommend you open a Plan & Invest ISA and an Investment Account, or just an Investment Account, depending on what you tell us about how you’ve used your annual ISA allowance. You’ll receive only one payment based on the total amount you paid into all your Plan & Invest accounts during the first 90 days, minus any withdrawals.
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No. We don’t match competitors’ campaigns.
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Once you’ve gone through the planning process to create your personalised Investment Plan, you have 30 days to decide whether you want to accept it and proceed to invest with us. Your Plan is saved during this time and you can come back to it at any point.
If you started your application during the period of the offer, but completed the account opening process afterwards, you’re still eligible for the offer provided you then pay in, or transfer, a minimum of £5,000 within 90 days of your account opening.
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Complete our questionnaire to find our if investing is right for you. If it is, we’ll work out how much you can afford to invest and how much you should set aside for a rainy day. You won’t be able to invest any more than what is affordable to you. You should only invest an amount you feel comfortable with, as you can get back less than you invested.
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You will pay the standard Plan & Invest account fees, which are between 1.39-1.59% depending on the investments within your Plan. Before you accept your Plan and open your account, we’ll show you exactly how much you can expect to pay. All fees are detailed here. [PDF, 651KB]
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With Plan & Invest, the cost reflects the Investment Plan you’ll receive that is tailored to you and managed by our experts. But we do have other investment options available, like Smart Investor where you can make your own investing decisions or If you’re ready to invest but are short on time or need some inspiration, you might want to consider one of our five ready-made investment funds. We encourage you to look at all your options.