Scottish Friendly named Best Junior ISA Provider at the Investment Life & Pensions awards
At a prestigious awards ceremony under the stars in central London on the 19thSeptember, Scottish Friendly was awarded the accolade of best UK Junior ISA Provider.
The Investment Life and Pensions Moneyfacts awards are regarded as one of the highlights of the personal finance industry calendar. It’s extremely tough to even be shortlisted, commended, or highly commended, let alone to actually win one of the award categories.
I should know. I’ve been involved in numerous judging panels over the years, covering life, pensions and investments, debating the credentials of the very strongest brands in financial services.
Scottish Friendly may not be the size of some of the better known UK financial services brands, but we’re proud to say we’re the little office that can, and we’ve proved that again by winning this award, hot on the heels of achieving Best UK Mutual Insurer at the Capital Finance International awards earlier this year.
I spoke to Kirsty Polley, who collected the award on behalf of Scottish Friendly to ask what it means to be crowned the best UK JISA provider.
“This is a fantastic achievement for Scottish Friendly to be recognised for and win such a prestigious award. “Friendly” is at the heart of everything we do for our products, services, customers and employees and I am extremely proud to be part of this team and the Scottish Friendly journey.”
To give you a snapshot of the awards process; Rigorous product monitoring is carried out throughout the preceding year to determine the winners. The finalists and eventual winners are decided by a combination of methods.
Two elements make up the product-specific categories: the first is a financial adviser voting process that takes place between 4 February 2019 and 12 April 2019, whereby advisers are asked to nominate their top three providers across the full range of protection, retirement and investment products.
Advisers are free to nominate any providers they wish, rather than having to select from a pre-determined shortlist. These results are then given over to the analytical expertise of the research team, who will thoroughly examine the pricing and features of each provider’s product during the preceding 12-month period to come to the final decisions.
So to win this award is no mean feat I hear you say? And you’d be correct in your assumption.
At Scottish Friendly we pride ourselves on serving our members and providing understandable products for everyone, regardless of previous experience or product knowledge.
I’m fast approaching my one-year anniversary working for Scottish Friendly, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every moment. We work in an extremely competitive industry, within an extremely uncertain political and economic environment. Yet, our strategy, which has been in place since 2006 continues to prove it’s the correct one to adopt, enabling us to be resilient against the aforementioned uncertainties.
For more information, please visit www.scottishfriendly.co.uk
Kevin Brown, PR & Communications Manager, Scottish Friendly
Important Information
Remember the value of investments can go down as well as up, and the child could get back less that you’ve paid in. If the child withdraws money before the end of 5 years, there will be a £50 deduction from the withdrawal value.
Tax-free means the funds grow free from tax, with the exception of tax we’ve already paid on your behalf (such as dividends from UK share). Tax treatment depends on individual circumstance. Tax law may change in the future.