[Good Money Guide]

No, PinnacleFlow is not regulated by the FCA or any other financial regulator, as far as we can tell and should be avoided.

If you want to start investing, make sure you use an FCA-regulated investment platform, which you can compare here: https://goodmoneyguide.com/investing/investment-accounts/

[Good Money Guide]

I’m afraid there are no truly safe investments!

The more money you have the more you fall outside the protection of the FSCS and FCA, but there are a few things you can do to minimise risk.

1. IF it sounds to good to be true it probably is.
2. Always do your research and read trusted reviews on a provider. If there are not any, that is a red flag in itself. Or if reviews are overally positive that could be a red flag too.
3. Check the FCA register to ensure a broker is regulated in the UK.
4. Never trust anything you see on social media

And the most important thing to do is “ASK” if you have a portfolio of investments, you should be able to engage a qualified wealth manager to give you an expert opinion based on your exact circumstances.

Or give us the name of the firms you are thinking of and we’ll take a look.

If you are looking for investing ideas, we frequently cover interesting stocks in our analysis section.

[Good Money Guide]

Yes, since 30th September 2012 Nutmeg say their managed protfolios have risen by 85.4% compared to 70.9% from their peers.

But beware you are investing so the market can move up and down. You can see Nutmeg’s portfolio performance over time here: https://www.nutmeg.com/fully-managed-portfolios.

If for instance you had invested at the start of 2022 and needed to withdraw the money for Christmas that year you would have lost about 12%

[Good Money Guide]

Yes you can earn interest on cash in an Investment ISA and the profits are tax-free as long as they are within your contribution limits. Although, be careful as some providers do not pay any interest at all. You can see our comparison of the best interest rates on uninvested cash here. Some providers offer low cost stocks and shares ISAs and earn money on the interest on cash instead. Whilst others will lure new customers in with high interest on univested cash, or cash-like products, with the hope of earning fees on stocks and fund costs.

[Good Money Guide]

I’m afraid this is now nearly impossible without paying an exorbitant amount. Even though we managed to insure our decommissioned black cab for taxi traders in 2024 we were warned by the insurance broker that it would be impossible to insure it again next year. The reason they gave was that when people buy decommissioned taxis it is generally for novelty purposes and as such they end up in a relatively large amount of accidents as they are dirive irresponsibly. For example, around the streets of London, with traders in the back. Even last year the insurance was nearly three times the value of the vehicle – so whilst it may seem like a good idea the costs are prohibitive.

[Good Money Guide]

This is a scam. What the scammers have done here is lured you in with the promise of above-market returns on a fixed income bond investment and copied a real investment firm to make themselves look legitimate.

This type of scam is known as a “clone“. The FCA and the real Aberdeen Standard are aware of this and published a warning in June 2020, which was updated this month: https://www.fca.org.uk/news/warnings/aberdeen-standard-investments-clone-authorised-firm

Those are the correct banking details for UK Forex (now OFX) who have been notified and their compliance department is investigating.

The scammers will provide fake banking details for you to send money to. In this case, they have provided the banking details of UK Forex (now OFX) a legitimate currency broker. The scammers may have set up a fake account with the currency broker using the KYC (ID) documents you supplied so that when your money arrives, it can be sent abroad quickly making it difficult to retrieve.

The email address that scammers have been sending you emails from is @aberdeenstandardinvestment.com which is listed as one of the fake websites used to clone Aberdeen Standard on the above FCA clone notice.

Douglas Tennant, Anti-Financial Crime Manager at Aberdeen Standard Investments told us:

We have been made aware of consumers being contacted by telephone regarding investing into high yield 1-5 year bonds with Aberdeen Standard Investments. I can confirm we do not offer such products nor do we advertise on such websites. We have recently updated our Investor Warnings across our websites to make consumers aware: https://www.aberdeenstandard.com/en/uk/investor/investor-risk-warning , this also provides contact details for getting in touch with our team.

You have certainly done the right thing by double-checking this and we encourage everyone to do their research online before investing with a new provider.

For more information on how bond scams work you can read our guide to fixed income scams.

Aberdeen Standard is not the only big investment firms to be cloned. Aviva, has also been cloned (https://www.fca.org.uk/news/warnings/aviva-plc-aviva-bonds-plc-clone-fca-authorised-firm)

If you think an investment is too good to be true or you think you are being scammed you should report it to the FCA here: https://www.fca.org.uk/consumers/report-scam-us

You can also search the FCA warning list for scams that have already been reported here: https://www.fca.org.uk/scamsmart/warning-list

[Good Money Guide]

This is a tricky one because there are so many different types of wealth manager, offering lots of different services in lots of different ways.

There are so-called digital wealth managers (robo-advisors) but they don’t really offer advice, rather provide a simple way to invest with different levels of risk.

There are old school wealth managers who provide a lot of advice and invest in funds offered by third parties. And there are also wealth managers who handle the entire process providing advice and invest your money in their in house funds.

Also, some clients require lots of advice about tax and planning, whereas other clients just need advice every now and again.

This means that as wealth managers look after so many different types of client, the fee structure for each would be very different. As such they do not publish their fees.

We have a wealth manager finder where you can request callbacks from different wealth managers and read interviews with their CEOs. We have also highlighted some questions to ask a potential wealth manager to make sure you don’t get stuck.

Remember as well that, on top of fees, when you engage with a wealth manager you may be dealing with them for decades so take your time and shop around.

[Good Money Guide]

No, you can’t pay into two separate ISA accounts in the same year. But you can set up a different one when the new financial year starts.

[Good Money Guide]

Yes, you can have more than one stocks and shares ISA account open and with funds deposited, but you are only able to pay into one in each financial year.

You have maximum ISA allowance of £20,000 which can be split as you like between different ISA types as you see fit but you must only ever pay into one of each type of ISA in a financial year. E.g., you could:

• Open a new investment ISA now for the FY 24/25 and pay in £10,00
• Also open a new cash ISA for the FY 24/25 and pay in £10,000.

You can also split your balance between up to three ISAs in a single financial year, provided you don’t exceed the maximum £20,000 allowance. So, you could:

• Also open a innovative finance ISA (sometimes known as peer to peer ISAs or p2p ISAs) for the FY 24/25 and pay in £10,000
• Also open a new cash ISA for the FY 24/25 and pay in £3,000
• Open a new investment ISA now for the FY 24/25 and pay in £7,000.

You could choose to pay into a Lifetime ISA, but the maximum deposit available in a single financial year for these accounts is £4,000 and these accounts count as either a stocks and shares ISA or a cash ISA depending upon the type of account you choose.

• Need more information? Read our guide on how to open an ISA.
  

[Good Money Guide]

If you have an old ISA accounts still open from previous years, either stocks and shares, peer to peer or cash ISA accounts, but have not paid into since the start of the new tax year you can choose to:

Leave them open and open an new one with a different provider (the interest you earn may be lower than when you first opened the account, especially in the case of cash ISAs)
Open a new account and arrange for the old ISA balance to be transferred to the new account
Begin paying into again (if your provider allows this)

Transfers made from old ISA accounts do not count towards your annual ISA allowance so are a good way to consolidate your ISA accounts if you want all of your investments in one place.

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