In this review, we are going to take an honest look at the TILLIT investment platform and the products they have to offer. We will take a look at their unique model compared to the other investment platforms on the market as well as fees, platform experience and customer reviews for their products. After reading this, you should be able to make an informed decision on whether or not TILLIT is for you.
TILLIT is an investment platform that offers the ability to invest in high-quality pre-vetted funds. Take full control of your portfolio and invest your money in the areas you want. TILLIT only offers funds on their platforms, rather than offering a full stock brokerage. This makes investment decisions much simpler.
- Great platform for people who only want to invest in funds
- Cheap platform fees that reward loyalty
- Pre-vetted funds
- £1 Minimum Investment
- Lack of platform reviews
Who Are TILLIT?
TILLIT is a new online investment platform launched in 2021 by Felicia Hjertman who was previously a fund manager at Baillie Gifford where she spent more than a decade co-managing its $2bn Japanese Small-cap equity funds. The company aims to curate a selection of best-in-class funds to make customers’ investment decisions easier.
Key Features and Services:
- Online Investment Platform: TILLIT provides an easy-to-use investment platform with a range of high-quality funds to choose from.
- Cheap Loyalty-Based Platform Fees: They have a single platform fee across its whole range of products. The fee starts at 0.4% and is lowered by 0.01% every year until it reaches 0.25%.
- Education: TILLIT offers a great overview of each of the funds they offer on the platform, making it easy for even inexperienced investors to understand what they are investing in. They also offer interviews with the fund managers of the actively managed funds on the platform, allowing investors to get to know who’s actually managing the fund.
- Control: When investing with TILLIT, you make the decision on which funds and areas you want to invest in.
What Products Does TILLIT Offer?
TILLIT currently offers two investment products; Stocks and Shares ISA and a General Investment account. They are currently looking into offering a SIPP if there is enough interest from users.
Stocks and Shares ISA
This account allows you to invest up to £20,000 per year without paying any tax on your profits, even when you withdraw. You pay no tax on capital gains, income, or dividends. Remember you can only have £20,000 spread across multiple ISAs in a single year.
General Investment Account (GIA)
This is a general investment account with no tax benefits. You can buy and sell shares as you please but will have to pay capital gains tax on any profit over your yearly allowance of £6,000.
How TILLIT Works
TILLIT sits between the digital wealth manager platforms such as Moneyfarm and full brokerage service platforms like Hargreaves Lansdown. It doesn’t offer fully curated portfolios and also doesn’t offer the ability to invest in specific stocks.
Their unique selling point is offering a range of pre-vetted funds that meet their requirements so you don’t have to filter through thousands of funds and stocks like you would on a legacy brokerage.
They give you full control over the specific funds you invest in, giving you a lot more freedom with your portfolio when compared to platforms that curate your portfolio for you. You don’t have the ability to invest in individual stocks but most people don’t need to anyway.
The platform only offers “Best in class” funds across a number of asset classes, regions and styles. Each fund has a great breakdown offered by TILLIT making it easy to understand the fund’s goals. We are going to take a deeper look at this below.
There is no incentive for TILLIT to push any specific fund as they do not receive kickbacks, commissions, or any other payments from asset managers. Each fund is selected based on research from the TILLIT team.
The TILLIT Universe
When starting to build your portfolio on TILLIT they have an area called “The TILLIT Universe”. Here you can easily find funds in the area you want to invest. Whether you want to invest in a specific sector, region or style of fund, they have you covered.
You can select a specific area from the screen below or you can open their portfolio builder to access their full range of funds.
You can use their filters to easily find the funds you are actually looking for as well as being able to split the funds into different categories such as equities, bonds, property, alternative assets and more.
Rather than displaying the name of the fund, they have a description one-liner as the headline. Personally, I think this is a great feature that makes it easier for casual investors to invest in what they want.
Below this, you can also see the actual fund name, Total Return for a 5-year period (After Fees)2 and the ongoing charges for the fund. The OCF (Ongoing charges figure) is important to look out for as it can eat massively into your returns.
Using their portfolio builder you can start to put together your portfolio of multiple funds before making any official purchases. You don’t even have to be a member to use this feature. It gives you the freedom to play around with a few different funds to get the right balance for your portfolio.
Once you’re ready, you can then purchase the funds in one go within your account.
The TILLIT View
One of my favorite features of the TILLIT platform is the fund overviews. Many legacy platforms have confusing fund fact sheets which can be hard to understand for new investors.
For each fund on TILLIT they provide a simple, easy-to-understand breakdown of what the fund focuses on. They cover, what the fund is, what makes it special, why you should own it, market environment impact and key risks.
This gives investors a solid overview of the fund at a quick glance.
Each fund also has a performance overview allowing you to see the returns of the fund over the past 5 years. When you hover over the chart, it also gives you a nice view of the fund performance vs the total sector in the same time frame.
If you’re curious about the exact holdings of each fund, this is also displayed on the funds page. You can dive into the top 10 holdings of the fund as well as a breakdown of the sectors the fund invests in.
Alternative Assets
TILLIT has access to some interesting alternative asset funds. If you want to branch out from your standard bonds and equities they have a unique selection of other funds to choose from.
They have funds that give you exposure to Gold and Silver, unlisted companies and a blockchain ETF.
TILLIT Fees
TILLIT has a different fee structure than most platforms out there. Rather than rewarding portfolio size, they reward loyalty. The longer you are on the platform, the cheaper the fees are.
The platform fees start at 0.4% per year. Every year you stay on the platform you get a 0.01% discount until you hit 0.25%.
Your discount applies to all products you have on the platform. If you’ve had a Stocks and Shares ISA for two years and are on a 0.38% fee and decide to open a Pension, you will also pay the 0.38% fee on your pension balance.
You will also have to pay the underlying fund fees for each of the funds you purchase on TILLIT. These fees are clearly presented on the TILLIT view of each fund.
Transferring Your Portfolio To TILLIT
If you have a stocks and shares ISA or general investment account on another platform, TILLIT has a concierge service that will help you transfer your portfolio to TILLIT.
You have two options; transfer to TILLIT as cash or bring your existing holdings over with you.
Unfortunately, as TILLIT only offers funds, that’s all you will be able to transfer. Individual stocks and shares are not able to be transferred to the platform. You can see the full list of assets you can bring with you below:
Cash transfers will take a few working days to transfer and asset transfers can take 4-8 weeks to complete.
If you bring funds with you that are not available on TILLIT and sell out of them completely, you will not be able to buy them back. If you hold the fund, you are able to trade it in any direction on TILLIT.
TILLIT Insights
TILLIT has a section on its site called Insights where the aim is to educate its customers and keep them up to date with what’s going on in the market.
Each month they release a market update breaking down how different regions and assets have performed as well as a section on what to look out for moving forward.
They also do opinion pieces on interesting topics related to the markets. While these shouldn’t be taken as investment advice, there are some interesting reads on their blog.
TILLIT Reviews
Unfortunately, as TILLIT is such a new platform there is a lack of independent reviews. Normally, we would look at Trustpilot to get an idea of how other people are finding the app. The only reviews we can find of TILLIT are on Boring Money.
Currently, it has 67% 5-star reviews and 33% 4-star reviews. You can check out the full selection of reviews here.
Is TILLIT Safe
Yes, even though TILLIT is a young company, they are safe to use. TILLIT is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Their custodian, Seccl Ltd is also authorised by the FCA, and your money is protected (up to £85,000) by the FSCS.
Who Should Use TILLIT
TILLIT is a great platform for investors who want control over their money but don’t have the desire to invest in individual stocks. They put the best funds from each category in front of investors making investment decisions a much simpler process. Beginners will benefit from the simplicity of the platform allowing them to quickly create a balanced portfolio of their choice.
Final Thoughts
TILLIT looks like a solid platform founded by someone with years of experience in the industry. For people who are new to investing and want control of which funds to put their money in without having to use a confusing legacy platform, TILLIT is a great option.
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