GoHenry, the prepaid debit card and financial education app for children, is working with the custodian and platform technology provider Seccl to offer a junior individual savings account (ISA) within its mobile app.
GoHenry is using Seccl’s API custodian service to offer a junior stocks and shares ISA within its mobile app.
Parents using GoHenry will now use Seccl’s technology to create the ISA for their child. Parents can contribute to the account through one-off or recurring payments. The ‘giftlinks’ service also allows contributions from the accounts of friends and family.
Seccl is also enabling users to move money into or out of the account from an existing junior ISA or child trust fund.
Contributions start at £1 and the accounts are limited to children between six and 15 years old. All investments are FSCS protected up to the value of £85,000; although any decrease in the value of the investment is not covered.
What’s more, the American fund manager Vanguard is to manage investments made in the ISAs. However, with around $7trillion in assets, Vanguard has just announced that it is to withdraw from the Net Zero Asset Managers (NZAM) initiative.
Launched in late 2020, NZAM seeks to encourage fund firms to reach net zero emissions by 2050. It’s also working to limit the rise in global temperatures. It had around $66trillion in assets under management as of 9 November. But with Vanguard’s departure, moving the industry away from fossil fuels might become more difficult now.
With so much consumer emphasis on clean and environmental, social and governance (ESG) compliant investments right, especially among younger generations, the long-lasting effect of this decision remains to be seen.
Investing in a child’s future
GoHenry is seeking to simplify investment products with its junior ISA and content hub. This is to help educate parents about investments while making money management an intuitive experience for everyone.
“Junior investment propositions are still a largely untapped market,” says Mary Agbesanwa, fintech growth lead at Seccl. “The latest HMRC statistics show interest in these products is rapidly growing.”
GoHenry’s investments proposition is an example of how firms can use Seccl’s technology to build hyper-customised investment journeys,” Agbesanwa continues. “In this case, empowering parents and children to invest for the future.
“We first met GoHenry in April and had migrated its existing junior ISA book from another provider by mid-September.”
David Ferguson, CEO at Seccl, adds: “Seccl’s and GoHenry’s alignment on the pivotal role that technology can play in building greater financial inclusion is what makes this partnership so successful – to see our technology play a role in helping to build financial success among young people is something I’m enormously proud of.
Ferguson describes the partnership as a “testament to what single-instance, API-first technology can achieve.”
