Lightyear “shares” a refer-a-friend offer

Investment platform Lightyear has introduced a refer-a-friend offer with a difference, this one pays you in shares. Lightyear is offering the opportunity for both you and your friends to earn £10 in free stocks when they join Lightyear and fund their account with at least £50. You can invite up to five friends per month, potentially earning a total of £50 in free stocks.

Lightyear has made the process very simple, you just need to tap the gift icon in the top right corner of the Lightyear app to send your invitations. You can invite up to five friends each month.

Lightyear offers several attractive features for both new and experienced investors, these include immediate returns on deposits. Your cash starts earning interest as soon as you make a deposit with the firm. Lightyear now offers Vaults, a new investment product offering higher interest rates in EUR, GBP, and USD.

Lightyear offers access to over 3,500 investable instruments, including fractional shares and free ETF trading. Lightyear levies no charges for trading ETFs and all of this is available on both their mobile and web platforms.

Vaults are Lightyear’s newest investment product that allows you to invest in AAA-rated, low-risk BlackRock money market funds. Lightyear’s vaults are available in three currencies: EUR, GBP, and USD. Interest Income is accrued daily and paid monthly there are low management fees of 0.10% for EUR and GBP and 0.25% for USD deposits.

Vaults offer you higher interest rates compared to uninvested cash held elsewhere.

Is there a high barrier to entry to investing with Lightyear?

No, Lightyear has made investing accessible by offering fractional shares, allowing you to start with smaller amounts. With over 3,500 instruments available and free ETF trading, you can begin your investment journey regardless of your starting capital.

It’s important to note that as with any investment product, your capital is at risk.

However, it’s also worth considering that keeping money uninvested comes with its own risks, such as inflation eating into your money’s purchasing power over time.

Lightyear provides flexibility in account access offering a Mobile app for investing on the go and a Web-based platform for desktop users both apps contain advanced features like stock and fund screeners for in-depth research.

Do other investment platforms have similar offers?

Yes, refer-a-friend schemes are quite common among investing and savings platforms.

• InvestEngine has a similar offer referring a friend to the online wealth manager can earn you a reward of between £10.00 and £50.00 when your referral invests £100 with the firm and if you refer a business account that reward can jump to between £50.00 to £100.00.
• Interactive Investor also has a refer-a-friend scheme under which you can earn £200.00 cash if your friend opens an account with £10,000.00 or more,
• AJ Bell’s Dodl app offers a £30.00 gift voucher for each of you if you and a friend each open an account at the broker with £500.00.
• JP Morgan’s Nutmeg offers an Amazon gift card of between £50.00 and £100.00 if you refer a friend and they open an eligible account and invest £500.00 with the firm, within 30 days of the referral. As an added bonus, your friend will pay no management fees for six months, and you can refer up to 20 friends per month to the offer.

But, why are refer-a-friend offers so popular? Quite simply word of mouth and personal recommendations are some of the best forms of marketing that investment firms can get.

What’s more, the cost of the reward and the admin of the referral scheme, are far lower than the cost of acquiring customers through other channels.