What investments Smart Investor has to offer

Keeping our offering up-to-date

We proactively manage the range of investments available on Smart Investor, and add new exchange listings as soon as we can after launch.

We try to provide the maximum coverage of all UK shares, those we’re happy to offer to our Smart Investor retail customers. As there are many thousands of funds and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) we look to offer those that appeal to many of our customers, as well as making sure more niche products are accessible where appropriate.

We won’t make any investment available where it’s classified as being targeted at Professional Investors only, or before we’ve confirmed all the necessary details. We'll also provide the documents and details of costs and charges required for you to make an informed decision.

We’ll complete this due diligence process as quickly as we can, but sometimes it may take a little while from when a company or product is listed or launched. Usually any delay is because we’re reliant on documents being published by the issuing company, but we also need to be sure we can correctly trade, settle, and price your investment once you hold it.

As we don’t automatically make available every investment of every type of asset, there might be one you wish to invest in that we don’t currently offer. Please contact us and we’ll review it and let you know if we can accept it for investment or not.

We reserve the right to apply any relevant criteria to our decision to make a product available or not. Any product offered on Smart Investor is available to all customers, though some products may be restricted to certain types of accounts due to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) rules covering ISAs and SIPPs.

Where available, always make sure you read the Key Investor Information Document (KIID) which tells you the essentials about a product’s objectives and how it invests, as well as the current costs.

Types of investments

When you look at investments on Smart Investor you’ll find they’re split into different categories:

Funds, ETFs, investment trusts, shares, and Gilts & Bonds.

If you want to understand these types of investments find out more here

Funds

When you invest in a fund, your money is spread across a wide range of underlying investments, which are overseen by a fund manager. It’s their job to run the fund in line with the investment objectives they set out, to try to make a profit for you and the other investors.

With a fund you can access all kinds of markets around the world, as well as different types of investments, which would otherwise be very hard, or very expensive to invest in – even if you did have the time and effort to do the necessary research.

Find out more about funds

Smart Investor offers around 2,500 funds for you to choose from. These are mostly UK based unit trusts and OEICs (open ended investment companies) where we offer full fund ranges from all the major fund managers as well as access to many smaller managers and funds. We also offer a small number of funds based in Ireland and Luxembourg.

We always make available the cheapest version of a fund that we can access for you.

If there’s an investment you’re interested in that we don’t currently offer then please contact us to see if we can make this available.

ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds)

ETFs and ETC (Exchange Traded Commodities) are like funds in that they allow you to indirectly access markets around the world. However, as they normally track an index – such as the FTSE 100 – , they are usually cheaper than an actively managed fund where you pay a manager to try to choose investments which will perform better. And as ETFs are listed on a stock exchange, you can buy and sell shares in them just like you would in any other company. ETFs don’t just track standard market indices though, they are popular as they also invest in specific sectors, such as finance or healthcare, as well as other investments like Government or corporate bonds.

Find out more about ETFs & ETCs

If you’re looking to buy an ETF or ETC we offer a large selection available to purchase in your Smart Investor account.

There are many thousands of ETFs available in the UK and we select those from leading providers that are of most interest to our Smart Investor customers. We monitor the new launches daily and add new products as soon as we can once all the key documents and charges data have been published.

If an ETF is available in more than one currency we’ll normally offer the version priced in GBP.

If there’s an investment you’re interested in that we don’t currently offer then please contact us to see if we can make this available.

Investment trusts

Investment trusts are like funds in that they allow you to access a large number of underlying investments through one product, by pooling your money together with other investors. Unlike funds, but like ETFs and ETCs, investment trusts are listed on the Stock Exchange and can be bought and sold throughout each day. However even though they’re listed like a company, their sole business is to invest on behalf of their investors.

Find out more about investment trusts

If you’re looking to buy an investment trust in your Smart Investor account, we give you access to all of those listed in the UK market, with just a few exceptions. We monitor the new launches daily and add new products as soon as we can once all the key documents and charges data have been published.

We don’t make available companies which are designed for professional investors, which are part of the Specialist Fund Segment on the LSE, or where the manager hasn’t published the key documents and charges data.

Shares

When you buy a share you’ll own a small part of that company, and the value of your investment will rely on the how well the company performs and the perception of how it will perform in the future. There are many potential benefits to investing in shares, including cash dividend payments they may pay out to shareholders.

When you buy a share though, you’re invested in the fortunes of just that one company - unlike when you buy a fund, ETF or investment trust and your money is immediately invested across multiple companies. So you need to remember when buying shares, you’ll need to consider how you spread your investing across different shares to avoid the high risks of relying on the prospects of a small number of firms.

You should always make sure your portfolio is properly diversified to spread risk.

Find out more about investing in shares

If you’re looking to buy shares in your Smart Investor account, Barclays gives you access to the full UK market, we monitor the new launches daily and add new companies as soon as we can.

UK shares available include all LSE listed companies, the AIM market, and shares listed on the Aquis exchange.

Remember, an easy way to spread your investment in shares is with a fund or an ETF. Instead of having to buy and hold lots of individual company shares you can buy a fund which with one purchase you’re invested in lots of different companies, often in many different countries. This can either be run by a professional manager making decisions on what they think is best to buy, or it might track an index.

International

We’ve recently launched international share dealing and you can now invest directly in companies that trade on markets other than the UK. We offer access to markets in:USA, Canada, Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Spain.

If a company has a listing in more than one market we’ll access the home listing for you – so a German company would be bought on the German exchange even if it also has a listing in the US. There are only a few exceptions where we would deal on a different market listing other than the ‘home market’.

If we have the ‘home market’ listing, we won’t also offer the ADR (American Depositary Receipt) for the stock.

Not all markets in these countries will be offered, and not all companies are available. You can read more about this service on our international trading page.

Gilts & Bonds

When you buy a bond, you’re lending your money to a company, government, or other body. Bonds issued by the UK Government are known to as ‘gilts’.

Corporate and government bonds are also referred to as fixed interest or fixed income and are usually considered less risky than buying shares, but more risky than just holding cash.

In exchange for handing over your cash to the company or government for a set period of time. You earn a regular fixed rate of interest known as a ‘coupon’, and when the bond’s life comes to an end and it reaches maturity, your original capital should be repaid in full.

Not all companies and countries are the same though and independent credit rating agencies grade bonds for how risky they are based on whether they might fail to pay out the promised interest or pay back the full capital amount at maturity.

Bonds, though not gilts, usually also deal in round lots of 1,000. So it’s not possible to make very small investments and buying more goes up in large increments. Often this will be a minimum purchase worth around £1000 and increasing quantities therefore £2000 then £3000 and so on. This means it’s not easy to build a diversified bond holding without investing quite a large amount of money.

Remember that Funds and ETFs allow you to invest in a number of different bonds through a single investment, allowing you to spread your money more easily than buying each asset directly.

Smart Investor lets you access:

• UK gilts
• UK corporate bonds we consider retail – those categorised as ‘non-complex’
• Access to complex UK corporate bonds where full client documentation, and costs and charges information is available.