Lightyear exists to help you find financial freedom that little bit faster. Every investment we make and product we launch is in service of that goal. One of the big wins recently has been our FCA authorisation, and we promised that the first thing we’d do is build better ISAs for you. Ones without custody fees that sneak up on you, without withdrawal penalties for when life throws you a curve ball, and ones that are actually easy to use.
Well, the team has been very hard at work doing just that. In true Lightyear fashion, we’ve done a bunch of user interviews, extensive research surveys and a lot of rigorous testing, incorporating all the feedback to land on something we’re really proud of.
You can read on to find out a little more about the products and all the finer details below! And remember, with the new rules introduced last year you can open multiple ISAs. So if you’ve still got some of your yearly allowance left (£20,000 per year, across all ISAs), we’re very pleased to be able to say it can be put to good use on Lightyear now!
Stocks & Shares ISA
Back in 2021, we first and foremost launched an investment platform, so the Stocks & Shares (S&S) ISA is most definitely our bread and butter. We knew you wanted all the same tools - earnings calls on the go, intuitive charting, company fundamentals and more - with the same low pricing and delightful experience you’re used to from us.
It’s sometimes hard to quantify the huge differences in pricing as every investor’s time horizon and portfolio make up differs. Still, it was incredibly important to highlight just how much these fees affect you over time, so we did some research with the independent macroeconomic research firm, Capital Economics. They found the Lightyear S&S ISA is 10x cheaper than the market average over 10 years.
For the longer-term investors, looking at account fees, plus transaction and currency fees, a typical S&S ISA holder will pay over £11,000 each on average over 25 years. Lightyear’s S&S ISA will be 16x times cheaper, charging just £670 over this 25-year time frame for the same activity.
You can read more about the research and the methodology here.
- No account fees, no subscription fees, no custody fees and no withdrawal fees
- No minimum amount to open
- ETFS free of execution fees
- £/€/$1 per trade (0.1% or $1 max for US stocks)
- 3,500+ stocks & funds available
- Earn interest through Vaults, backed by BlackRock: 4.84% AER (variable), money is invested in money market funds
- Flexible – move money in & out without affecting your annual allowance
- 10x cheaper than the market average (validated by Capital Economics)
Cash ISA
It struck us that the Cash ISA market is pretty confusing. When we were doing our research to figure out where Lightyear’s place in the market should be, we were inundated by flashy limited-time promo rates, different rates for new customers vs existing customers, hidden penalty fees in the small print and surprise rate changes at the drop of a hat.
That didn’t really do it for us. We wanted to give you something that felt like Lightyear. Transparent, easy to understand and delightful to use. We landed on a Cash ISA that gives you the real real rate - the Bank of England base rate - so you no longer have to rate shop, or worry about surprises. Whatever the BoE rate is, that’s the rate your Cash ISA gets with us.
- Earn 4.75%. Our rate is presented as the annual equivalent rate (AER)
- No minimum amount to open
- Money is held in UK banks and qualified money market Funds (QMMFs)
- Easy access & no withdrawal fees or penalties – no sneaky moves from us if you withdraw a certain number of times
- If the Bank of England base rate goes up or down, so does yours
- Flexible – move money freely without losing your annual ISA allowance
As you hopefully know by now, we’re not the sort of company that launches an important product and then leaves it untouched for years (*cough* we see you, banks). We’ll be building and releasing more ISA features over the coming weeks, so watch this space 👀
If we’re missing some of your favourite features or instruments, we want to know. Write to us (support@lightyear.com) and tell us what you want to see.
That’s all from me for now. Happy ISA season!
Disclaimer
As always, when you invest your money your capital is at risk, and ISA rules apply.
Wander Rutgers is the UK CEO at Lightyear. He joined the company as an investor in the first round, advising Martin & Mihkel on compliance, operations and business development before joining the business full time as COO in May 2022. At Lightyear, Wander is focused on building out the brokerage, compliance and business functions to support growth and expansion.
Before Lightyear, Wander was President of Robinhood UK leading the business in its international expansion efforts. Before that, he was a Product Lead at Plum where he spearheaded the launch of its mutual fund investing product. Wander also held various roles at Wise (now TransferWise) across operations and product, including helping the company expand into dozens of new markets. He started his career as a strategy consultant at McKinsey in the Netherlands and earned his M.A. in Economics and Politics at the University of Edinburgh.
