Plan & Invest : FAQs

Our investment approach can be divided into 4 main phases:

1. Building a view on the markets
2. Adjusting the view to your personal circumstances and risk appetite
3. Selecting the right investments for you
4. Rebalancing and monitoring your investments.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Yes. See - What type of investing service is this?

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.

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.

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.

No you can’t. See – What type of service is this?

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). 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.

Yes we do. Read more about this service.

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.

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?).

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.

At the moment, no you can’t change your goal type e.g. change from home to education goal.

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.

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.

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.

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.

To be eligible you must:

1. 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
2. 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.

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.

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.

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.

No. We don’t match competitors’ campaigns.

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.

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.  

Yes. The maximum cashback amount you can earn with this incentive is £2,000 (the ‘Cashback Cap’).

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.

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.

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.

No. We don’t match competitors’ campaigns.

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.

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.

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]

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.