WiseAlpha - Fintech Q&A!

@krr13 Hi, quite a few bonds have call prices in their bond prospectus’. These are the prices that a company can pay back their bond earlier at. A bond will normally be issued at par (or 100) and to compensate investors for an early repayment of the bond a premium is included (i.e. the call price). Often bonds that are expected to be repaid early trade at or around the call price.

Does that help?

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Hi that makes perfect sense thank you.

Hi Harry,

Thanks for the kind words! We offer Notes (fractions of bonds) so that people can buy into individual corporate bonds in affordable sizes (these are normally £100k-£200k). For example everyone can buy Ocado stock but you can’t buy the bonds unless you are super wealthy - totally crazy!. Also the big global banks don’t really want to deal with smaller investors so we help the whole process along acting as the aggregator.

Economically speaking there is no difference because we pass on the exact economics of the bond to our users (people effectively own fractions of the bond). We hold the voting rights however but vote based on what we feel is best for our investors. People also have to trade (buy and sell) on our platform.

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Hi Harry,

We’re a completely different product to ETFs which are a pooled black box subject to share price movements and it’s much more difficult to understand what segment of the bond market they are investing in - many don’t get access to the same types of bond issue and also buy into index’s. It’s much more difficult to understand the cashflows and returns you can earn from that type of vehicle and it remains to be seen what might happen with ETF type structures in a downturn.

Just like you may use Freetrade to buy individual stocks you can also use WiseAlpha to buy into individual bonds across a wide risk/return spectrum. You can also invest in our managed products (Smart Interest) or our intelligent automated robo-manager, Robowise which we released today! Many users on our platform like the choice and having greater certainty on the cashflows and when there money is repaid. The simple interest and term offered by our Smart Interest product is liked by users who don’t like price movements and want greater certainty of returns.

Plus, we’re cooler than an ETF…I think.

Please remember that as with all investing your capital is at risk.

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@Theodore Interesting…word is spreading! Robowise is our intelligent portfolio manager where you can choose from a Balanced or Adventurous portfolio and the manager will show you the portfolio it will build for you. It’s way more transparent than a robo-advisor because you can also choose which industries you can include and even take out certain companies you don’t like as well! So really it’s robo-manager you control because you can adjust the settings and turn it on and off at anytime.

Smart Interest is a simple fixed term for a fixed rate type of product which is for folks who like a greater certainty of return over a specific timeframe. Folks who like to plan their earning and spending timeline like this. It’s Smart because it’s simple and neat and plus it’s zero fees!

And yes we will be launching our IFISA next year. If you sign up to the platform you’ll receive news as soon as it drops!

Best, Rezaah

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@Theodore By the way we are also live on Crowdcube now as well so if Freetraders want to get involved with WiseAlpha as well we’re more than happy to welcome you!

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I’ve recently invested via Wisealpha and have been really impressed with their easy to use platform and the returns. I am using Robowise Balanced portfolio with returns of around 6%.

There are so many investment classes on the market at the moment and access to corporate bonds is unique for small investors.

I’ve yet to try and sell any of my investments and I’m hoping the sales process is as simple as the initial investing process. I’m not going to spam but I do have a referral link in the wiki post if you want to give it a try.

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I didn’t think you can sell through Wisealpha? I remember reading somewhere that selling is at their discretion.

You sell on their secondary market. Anyone who wants to sell has always found a buyer. But I just don’t know how long that takes.

Can’t even find the secondary market on their site?

It must be in the background. I presume they match trades behind the scenes. If I was confident I could sell fairly quickly I would pump a lot more of my investments into here.

Maybe! I’ve been keen to sell off a tester amount I popped in there a few months back.

I had a really good look around the desktop version last month but couldn’t find anything apart from an FAQ about the Secondary Market.