Updated: 18th January 2022
The Big Exchange Review
This platform is all about impact investing – which means aiming to get a return from your investments, whilst at the same time making a positive impact for society.
Overall Score 2.5
Overall Score
Our View
What accounts are available?
There are basically only two account options with The Big Exchange – the General Investment Account (GIA) and the tax protected Individual Savings Account (ISA). So whilst there’s no pension option, the good news is that ISA is ‘flexible’ which means you can take money out of your ISA and put it back in again, during the same tax year, without it counting against your ISA limit twice. There’s also the option of a Junior ISA so investing for children and grandchildren is also do-able on the platform.
Score 3
Score
What kind of investments can I make?
The choice at True Potential when it comes to investment portfolios is fixed at 5. They range from ‘defensive’ at one end, to ‘aggressive’ at the other with three more options in between. So that should mean there’s something for most investors, unless of course you want to take a sustainable approach to your wealth building – as there’s no socially responsible or ESG options available. Whilst True Potential make a big thing about you getting access to 9,000 investment professionals in 200 locations, what they mean is you’re getting access to funds run by some of the biggest investment houses like Goldman Sachs and UBS.
Score 3
Score
What account features are available?
This is a pretty stripped back service, hence why the score here is lower than some of the others. Yes you can invest each month which is great news, and yes, your bundle of funds is automatically rebalanced to make sure it is still in line with what it is trying to do. But which bundle you choose will be down to you and your own research. That being said, it’s very clear on the website what each one does and what’s in each bundle. What’s also useful is that there’s lots of help for inexperienced investors like choosing an account or choosing funds.
Score 1.5
Score
How can I access my account and get support?
Not a brilliant score here. There’s currently no way to contact The Big Exchange by phone, and there’s no online chat app. There’s not even an email address. You can however use their online form to submit a question, but this doesn’t really stack up against the competition. On the plus side, once you open an account you can access it either via a standard web browser or via apps for iOS and Android.
Score 2.5
Score
How much does it cost?
The fee The Big Exchange take for looking after your investments and managing the bundles is very low indeed. However, the costs of the underlying funds in the bundles is higher than most of the other platforms here. There are two reasons for this – one, impact investing funds tend to be more expensive anyway, and second, that you’re buying the services of human fund managers and not index trackers as most of the services tend to offer.