Wombat Invest Review

Wombat allows investors to choose to invest in a range of companies through 29 branded EFT-themed funds.

Investors can also build custom portfolios and invest in fractional shares of companies in both the UK and the USA.

Within these themed funds, you can start investing with as little as £10, by selecting one or more of the following themes based on your interests and beliefs:

• Fly the flag
• Pure Gold
• The Adventurer
• The Money-Maker
• The Lifestyler
• All American
• The Ai
• The Techie
• The Foodie
• The World’s Greatest
• The Snack Attack
• The Healthcare Innovators
• The Balanced
• The British Bulldog
• The Robo
• Join the Metaverse
• The High-Ender
• The Battery Room
• The Gamer
• The Space Age
• Powering the Internet
• The Blockchain

The Wombat investment themes have a risk level, illustrated with chillies, so you can create a carefully balanced investment strategy or select a diversified portfolio that is in line with your appetite for risk.

Also consider: How to buy gold stocks and the best gold ETFs UK

Wombat also offers impact investing-themed funds, which allow investors to back companies that are making a positive impact on the world. These funds include brands that support entities such as clean energy and medical cannabis, with seven portfolio choices in total that allow ethical investing. These include:

• The Future of Food
• Medical Cannabis
• The Electric Car Revolution
• The Green Machine
• The Goodies
• The Innovator
• Women in Power

Fractional Investing

Fractional shares allow you to buy a fraction of a share, allowing you to own part of big brands and companies that may otherwise have been inaccessible for your budget.

Some of the shares that fractional investing at Wombat gives customers access to include brands such as Netflix, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple, to name a few. All the fractional shares on offer at Wombat are UK or US shares and offer investors the opportunity to create a diversified portfolio.

Want to know more? Head to the learning hub, where you can find out more about fractional investing on the Wombat investment platform and how it works.

Round-Ups

Wombat links to your bank account in order to round up your purchases to the nearest pound to add money to and grow your investment fund without you really noticing it. While round-ups are an effective strategy for saving and investing money, they have been on offer at several high street banks for some time now, so they aren’t exactly new and innovative but rather a handy little add-on.

Auto-Invest

Auto-Invest allows users to automate their investments to repeat monthly, a revolutionary feature that makes investing a habit and can facilitate a set-and-forget type of approach to investments.

While Wombat offers a great place for newbie investors to have their first foray into the marketplace, it is currently only available via the Wombat app. This may deter investors who prefer a web-based program; however, given that Wombat is targeting their efforts at young and novice investors, it is likely that this demographic will be more than comfortable conducting their investments through a mobile app.

Wombat provides a clean, innovative, and easy to use platform that can be navigated quickly in order to place your investments.

Wombat offers decent charts, providing you with tracking information on your portfolio size and some handy projections into the future of your investments. They also have a fairly comprehensive Learning Hub with interesting, helpful articles to improve your investing knowledge. The Learning Hub also has a handy little search function that allows you to quickly navigate the articles to get to the one you are looking for.

Once you have selected your theme based on your interests and beliefs, it’s easy to access more information in the fund’s documents section, including the risk and reward profile, charges, objectives and investment policy, past performance, and any other practical information.

One of the biggest selling points of the Wombat app is that they have managed to make investing easy and convenient, and this also rings true of their account opening process. Once you have downloaded the app, you will be asked a few basic questions, after which you will be ready to start investing. It only takes around five minutes, and with their simple investment model, you can be up and running with a few clicks.

At present, Wombat only offers bank transfers or instant deposits as a means of funding your investment account, although they do claim that they have plans to add a debit card option in the future. To transfer money to Wombat, you should go to the homepage of the app and press ‘Add money’. Your funds should appear in 2-5 business days for bank transfers and 2 hours for instant deposits.

You can then choose to make an Instant Deposit if your bank supports open banking or a traditional bank transfer, which should arrive within a couple of hours during business days.

Withdrawals must be done by contacting support within the in-app live chat feature.

I was very let down by the Customer Service at Wombat, mostly because they only offer support via email, which is hardly an instant source of support or very technologically advanced. Also, considering the app is set up for newbies, I really think having a chat function would enhance the experience. Forget about trying to locate a Contact Us section on their website, as this is sadly lacking, and even on the app itself, it is tricky to find details for their support.

That being said, when I did get in contact, my query was answered in a timely fashion, and the agent seemed knowledgeable and polite.