‘ISA Investment’:
FCA Warns Investors to Avoid Unauthorised Firm

Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs) allow savers and investors the opportunity to save up to £20,000 per year, without paying any tax on the interest or returns generated. There are different types of ISA available, namely cash ISAs, stocks and shares ISAs, innovative finance ISAs (containing peer-to-peer loans) and lifetime ISAs (designed to help you save for your first home or your retirement).

An ‘investment ISA’ is another term for a stocks and shares ISA, but the company that calls itself “ISA Investment” is not a typical stocks and shares ISA provider suitable for the average investor.

According to their website, ‘ISA Investment’ is “an international multi-asset fintech group operating AI-based trading platforms”. They offer a number of different types of investment, including FOREX (foreign exchange trading), cryptocurrency, commodities (a long list, including gold, silver, coffee and wheat), stocks (shares in individual companies such as Coca-Cola or Uber) and indices (such as FTSE or NASDAQ). The types of investment opportunities offered are available to everyone but, on reading the website’s small print, include high-risk investments. The company ‘ISA Investment’ is simply a trading platform and does not offer any investment advice.

The lack of information on the ‘ISA Investment’ website raises a number of red flags, including:

• Vague or missing contact details and company information
• Not listed in the FCA’s Financial Services Register
• Subject of an FCA warning about offering unregulated services

If you are researching investments online and come across something that catches your eye, ask yourself, “Does it seem too good to be true?”. Do you understand the type of investment and all the risks associated with investing in it? Can you afford to lose the money if the value of the investment goes down, not up? It would be prudent to:

• Do your research and look for online reviews.
• Get independent advice from a regulated, FCA-authorised financial adviser before investing any money.
• Take time to consider different options; don’t feel rushed or pressured into investing.
• Ensure that the company you are investing with is authorised and regulated by the FCA to operate in the UK.

If you have already invested with the company called ‘ISA Investment’ and lost money, please get in touch. ‘ISA Investment’ is targeting people in the UK but, as they are not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, you would not have access to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) if you have a complaint. FOS is an independent government-backed organisation that was set up to resolve disputes between customers and regulated financial businesses.

It may be possible to make a claim against your bank if it failed in its duty to protect you and your money from scammers. Banks must have procedures and processes in place to monitor customers’ transactions and should question you in detail about pending payments that look unusual or uncharacteristic. They even have the power to delay or block payments that may relate to money laundering, fraud or scams.

Sarah Spruce heads up the Investment Fraud team at TLW Solicitors and says:

“Authorised Push Payment (APP) Fraud occurs when you authorise your bank to make a payment – believing it to be in good faith, for example, for an investment – but that investment turns out to be a scam. We know that the fraudsters who run these scams move money into other bank accounts quickly, making it difficult to trace or recover.

Banks are far more aware of the tactics scammers use, so should be working hard to protect their customers’ money. There have been several important decisions by the Financial Ombudsman Service saying banks are not taking enough responsibility to prevent fraud from happening in the first place.

We are working with a number of clients who have, unfortunately, lost money as a result of investing with ‘Investment ISA’.”