Wealth & Finance International - February 2017

7 February 2017 Abundance Offers a 2% Return on ISA Cash Balances Until 31 May With ISA season all but upon us, and with the new ‘Innovative Finance ISA’ (IFISA) now available, P2P investment platform Abundance (www.abundanceinvestment.com ) is this week launching an offer of a 2% return on any money invested before the tax year end to encourage people to take up this year’s ISA allowance before they lose it – permanently – on April 6th. The 2% return will be paid up to 31 May this year, by which time Abun- dance will have launched a number of new renewable energy projects for customers to choose between and move their money into if they want. If they decide they don’t want to invest in Abundance debentures after all, they could simply transfer their holdings to another ISA with another pro- vider before or when the 2% offer finishes at the end of May, preserving their 2016-17 ISA entitlement. Below is the email Abundance has sent to its customers this week, which provides more information on the 2% offer. As you may know, Abundance was one of the very first IFISA providers to be signed off to sell the new product by the FCA last year, and went live on April 6th 2016, although it wasn’t until 1st November last year that Abundance’s debentures were eligible for inclusion in the IFISA, when “debt securities” were added by HMT and HMRC to the assets that could be held. Abundance launched 5 years ago, as a fully regulated investment plat- form from outset – long before the new regulations for P2P lending were introduced - and has to date seen just under £40 million invested across its SIPP, ISA and ‘unwrapped’ Debenture offerings. The business has also paid out more than £6.4 million in half yearly payments of capital and return from the Debentures their customers have invested in. Abundance’s ISA has already proven very popular, with more than 1,400 investors taking out the new product and investing just under £8 million to date. The projects that these people invested their ISA money in in- cluded: • Upper Pitforthie Windgen: £2.3m invested in total, paying 7.3% to 8.5% IRR over 17 years • Monnow Valley Biomass: £3.9m invested in total, paying 12% inter- est over 12 months • Swindon Chapel Farm Solar: £2.5m invested in total, paying 6% IRR over 20-year term • Thrive Renewables Bond: £4.4m invested in total, paying 5% inter- est p.a. over 7 years Bruce Davis, cofounder and joint MD of Abundance said, “We want to turn investing in ISAs from something gathering dust in the forgotten corner of a bank or riding the roller coaster of global stock markets into something that makes a difference in the real world. Investors’ money will be working harder than it would in the bank, boosting the UK’s green economy and sustainable infrastructure, and returns will be tax-free.” With the underlying investments offered by Abundance being in heavily vetted, UK based, renewable energy PLCs, using fully regulated and trad- able Debentures (much lower risk than Mini Bonds etc), the Abundance IFISA offers ISA investors a useful new ‘middle ground’ between Cash ISAs paying sub-inflation interest, and highly volatile Stocks and Shares ISAs riding the wild seas of current global markets. The Abundance ISA is already proving very popular as a place to trans- fer existing Stocks and Shares ISA holdings from previous years, to take advantage of the diversification available (uncorrelated assets) and the steadier, lower risk returns.