This is our independent TILLIT review.
In this TILLIT review we cover how it works, how much it costs, which accounts TILLIT offers and its main pros and cons.
Click the table of contents to skip ahead to a particular section or read on for our full TILLIT review.
- TILLIT Review: Key Features
- TILLIT Review: What Is TILLIT?
- TILLIT Review: What Can You Invest In With TILLIT?
- TILLIT Review: How Does TILLIT Work?
- TILLIT Review: Research & Tools
- TILLIT Review: TILLIT Fees & Charges Explained
- TILLIT Review: Customer Service
- TILLIT Review: Customer Reviews
- TILLIT Review: Is TILLIT Safe?
- TILLIT Review: Pros & Cons
- TILLIT Review: Final Verdict
TILLIT’s Key Features
- Investment Options: Mutual funds, ETFs and Investment Trusts
- Mix of active and passive funds
- No shares, bonds, crypto or non-GBP denominated assets
- Accounts: Stocks & Shares ISA and General Investment Account (GIA)
- Fees & Charges:
- 0.40% annual platform fee, applies at client level so the aggregate value of all of your accounts (e.g. ISA and GIA values combined)
- Annual fee decreases by 0.01% per year for up to 15 years, potentially reaching 0.25%
- No trading, transfer or exit fees
- Minimum Investment: £1
- FCA Regulated: Yes
- FSCS Protection: Yes
TILLIT Review: What Is TILLIT?
Founded in 2021, TILLIT is an FCA regulated funds-only investment platform which describes itself as a ‘fund boutique’.
Its founder, Felicia Hjertman, is Swedish and the name TILLIT comes from the Swedish word for ‘trust’. TILLIT has an investment committee which is made up of experienced investment management professionals.
TILLIT’s aim is to deliberately limit the choice of funds on offer through its platform to those that its experts believe are ‘best-in-class’. Experts at TILLIT then provide extra commentary around the funds that are chosen to help you decide whether you want to invest in them.
TILLIT Review: What Can You Invest In With TILLIT?
Describing itself as a ‘fund boutique’, TILLIT offers a curated range of mutual funds, ETFs and Investment Trusts. Their selection covers funds which invest across the main regions and asset classes and includes both actively managed and passive funds.
By calling itself a boutique and offering a limited range of funds, TILLIT positions itself apart from the fund ‘supermarkets’ such as Hargreaves Lansdown, AJ Bell and Interactive Investor which host thousands of funds to choose from.
TILLIT’s view is that funds represent the best form of long-term investment success, but that there are too many to pick from for the average investor looking to build their own ‘DIY’ portfolio. So, they have put together a curated selection of funds, with additional commentary and analysis provided by TILLIT experts, to help you build your own portfolio.
There are an increasing number of low-cost ETF platforms, but TILLIT is more interesting than those because it also offers mutual funds and investment trusts.
This means that you could create a portfolio made up of both actively-managed and passive funds, giving TILLIT an edge on its rivals by providing more choice.
On top of that, TILLIT’s funds are curated, meaning they’ve been positively selected by in-house experts. So the range of funds on offer are there because TILLIT’s investment experts believe they have some value over other funds.
This is, of course, no guarantee that the funds on TILLIT’s platform will outperform other similar funds or benchmarks. You should still always do your own research before investing.
Overall, though, beginner investors in particular may benefit from this approach to a funds platform as it (in theory) cuts the choice down to better quality funds without charging as much as the best robo-advisors.
More experienced investors looking to save time on searching for funds will also benefit from TILLIT.
TILLIT Review: How Does TILLIT Work?
You will need to create an account with TILLIT to start investing. The process for doing so is straightforward with the details required that you would expect to give an investment platform, including your national insurance number and proof of ID.
Note that a ‘soft’ credit check is required when signing up to verify your details and ID.
Our sign-up process to open a GIA took longer than usual as manual checks by TILLIT staff were required. This is not uncommon when signing up to investment platforms, but it meant that signing up to TILLIT took longer than it did in our experience with many other platforms. Especially compared to some of the best investment apps in the UK.
It should be noted, though, that it only took around 45 minutes for TILLIT to complete these checks before we got an email to notify us that our account was ready.
Once you’ve opened your account, you can browse through the range of funds on offer at TILLIT. This range of funds is known as the TILLIT ‘Universe’ and encompasses all of the funds available on its platform.
Its search feature is great, with handy filters to sort through the funds you might be interested in. Filters include by theme, region, asset class and structure. You can apply additional filters too, such as whether they’re active or passive.
Each result is given a headline rather than the actual fund name (although the fund name is visible too). This helps to give an initial understanding of what each fund is about and where or how it invests.
On the search results screen, you can click ‘invest’ or ‘info’ next to each fund. Clicking invest leads to an order execution window where you input how much you want to invest and can then add this fund to your ‘basket’, much like online retail shopping.
If you instead click on ‘info’ you’ll then see some of the added value that TILLIT provides. This includes the ‘TILLIT View’ which provides a concise summary of what the fund is, why you might want to own it, its risks and more. This is a helpful feature as you can quickly gain a good overview of a fund which helps you to decide if you’d like to invest in it.
Further down you’ll also see a ‘Meet the manager’ section which includes a video interview with the fund’s manager. Not all fund managers have been interviewed so this won’t apply to some of the funds available. But this is actually a very useful feature and gives more insight into the minds behind funds, which can often seem difficult to understand to many investors.
It’s clear that there’s a lot to like about TILLIT’s platform and beginner investors looking to build a portfolio for the first time will enjoy using it. For more experienced investors it’s also a potential time-saver compared to doing manual research and filtering on funds.
Transfer To TILLIT
On TILLIT’s website there’s a prominent section called ‘Transfer Concierge’ under Accounts. This is where you can input your details of an existing Stocks & Shares ISA or GIA and have it transferred to TILLIT.
There are two ways an ISA or GIA can be transferred – in cash or in specie, and these two options are the same for transfers with many providers. Transferring in cash means that your existing investment will be sold by your current provider and the cash proceeds transferred over to TILLIT.
An in specie transfer will switch your existing investments from your current provider to TILLIT without selling them, meaning that you stay invested throughout the process. Now, because TILLIT offers a curated list of funds to invest in, it may not support some of the funds you’re already invested in.
This is where TILLIT’s ‘Dark Universe’ comes in. This allows you to keep existing funds not supported by TILLIT in your TILLIT account, and continue to manage them despite them not being available for new investors.
If you’re considering switching to TILLIT then this could make the process much smoother for you. There are also no transfer fees charged by TILLIT, but you should check any exit/transfer fees charged by your current provider before making the switch.
Transferring in specie is usually not an issue if you’re switching from one of the large investment platforms to another. But this can be an issue if switching to smaller and newer platforms, such as TILLIT, so this feature is a great addition as it allows you to stay invested throughout the transfer process.
TILLIT Review: Research & Tools
The purpose of TILLIT is to have already narrowed down your choice of investments by picking best-in-class funds for you to choose from. So there’s an implied level of research and analysis behind each of the funds available with TILLIT.
On top of this, TILLIT provides further tools and insights on its website which we outline below.
Portfolio Builder
Signed up account holders are able to use TILLIT’s portfolio builder tool to put together their portfolio. Before signing up and opening an account, though, TILLIT allows you to try it out for yourself.
The portfolio builder allows you to browse funds and go through the portfolio building process before investing, just to see what it might look like.
In our view, TILLIT’s portfolio builder really helps it to stand out from other investment platforms. It’s a useful tool and well worth playing around with even if you don’t intend to sign up yet.
It’s a great ‘try before you buy’ feature which we’d like to see more of from investment platforms. TILLIT seems to have invested well into making their portfolio builder user-friendly and in our view they’ve succeeded.
Insights
On the TILLIT website you can browse its ‘Insights’ section. This is a collection of articles around investing, including personal finance guides, explainers and opinion pieces.
There are currently two opinion pieces on TILLIT’s website and it’s not clear when they were written as they’re not dated. It looks as though these are infrequent articles as one references COP26 in Glasgow which happened in 2021.
However, there are monthly Market Update articles which are up-to-date, as well as regular explainer articles which the novice investor may find useful. Market update and explainer articles are common to see on investment platforms, so while they’re a ‘nice to have’ they’re not going to determine whether or not you should sign up.
Jargon Flashcards
These are TILLIT’s version of a glossary that provides short explanations of investing and economics terms.
Visually, it looks great and is a nice interactive glossary. It’s organised by Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced terms, or you can search for a term in the search bar.
As far as investment platform glossaries go, in our view TILLIT’s has the best design and is the most interactive of the platforms we’ve reviewed.
TILLIT Review: TILLIT Fees & Charges Explained
Most investment platforms charge at least one out of an annual platform/management fee, dealing charges or funding and withdrawal fees.
TILLIT has positioned itself in the funds investing space and in this sector it tends to be annual platform fees or management fees that are the main cost.
That is the case with TILLIT which charges a 0.40% annual fee – to begin with. Each year you stay with TILLIT your annual fee reduces by 0.01%, with a maximum reduction of 0.15% after 15 years which results in a 0.25% fee.
There are no dealing charges or commission and no funding/withdrawal or transfer fees. Ongoing fund charges are charged separately and apply no matter your platform.
TILLIT’s pricing structure is innovative with its reducing fee but still straightforward. The first year fee of 0.40% beats the main robo-advisors on cost, and it’s also competitive with the major investment platforms.
TILLIT Review: Customer Service
There are 3 ways to contact TILLIT if you need help. You can do so via email, online chat or webform.
We tested out TILLIT’s chat support and received an initial reply to our question via TILLIT’s chatbot within about 3 minutes. This was from a live customer agent. They looked further into our query and we were given a satisfactory response.
Newer investment platforms don’t always offer phone support and it’s no different with TILLIT. These days, phone support tends to only be offered by the larger and more established investment platforms.
TILLIT Review: Customer Reviews
At the time of writing (September 2023) there are no Trustpilot reviews of TILLIT as yet. As TILLIT doesn’t have an app, there are also no customer reviews on the App Store to assess.
We will update this section of our TILLIT review when more information is available.
TILLIT Review: Is TILLIT Safe?
TILLIT is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and has Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) protection. This means that in the event of TILLIT going into administration, your money would be protected by the regulator up to £85,000 per person.
As an FCA-regulated firm, you are able to appeal to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) if you cannot resolve a dispute directly with TILLIT. The FOS’ decisions are impartial and binding.
Aside from regulatory protection, TILLIT has a team behind it with extensive investment management experience.
With all investing, your capital is at risk. Always do your own research and if you need guidance then consider speaking to a regulated financial advisor.
TILLIT Review: TILLIT Pros & Cons
Below we summarise the main pros and cons after extensively testing and using TILLIT’s platform and website for this TILLIT review.
TILLIT’s Pros
- Great service for beginner investors who want to build their own portfolio of funds but aren’t sure where to start
- More experienced investors will also benefit from a curated list of funds which saves time vs doing your own research
- Curated funds provide a good mix of passive and active funds
- Competitive pricing of 0.40% per year, which reduces over time
- No trading/dealing fees
- Minimum investment of just £1
- Flxible Stocks & Shares ISA meaning you can replace any cash you withdraw without affecting your annual ISA allowance
- Transfers from existing providers are free and can be in cash or in specie (transfer without selling investments)
TILLIT’s Cons
- No app, so you must be comfortable logging into TILLIT’s website to manage your investments
- Its pricing is innovative, as it reduces over time, but the initial 0.40% is higher than the DIY services of some of its competitors
- Does not offer individual shares or bonds
- No LISA or JISA. Read our guide to the best Junior Stocks and Shares ISAs here.
TILLIT Review: Final Verdict
Our initial thoughts when we started using TILLIT is that there’s definitely a gap in the market for this kind of platform.
The big retail investment players such as Hargreaves Lansdown, AJ Bell and Interactive Investor have a huge choice but this can often be overwhelming, particularly for less experienced investors.
Experienced investors who don’t have time to research and screen funds themselves will also benefit from TILLIT’s platform of curated funds. TILLIT seeks to simplify the process of building your own portfolio of funds and in our view it does a very good job of doing so.
TILLIT’s innovative pricing structure, of charging a smaller percentage over time, is an interesting proposition and could help to maintain customers. In our view the main downside to TILLIT is the lack of an app, but it would be no surprise to see this brought out in the future.
Overall, TILLIT is well worth considering if you want to build your own funds portfolio at a reasonable price but need a little help getting started and picking your investments.
Capital at risk if you invest.
Fact-checked.
This article has been fact-checked by Talal, who is a CFA qualified finance professional. Talal previously advised clients with at least £1 billion to invest, so you’re in safe hands.
