Investment centre

What is the investment centre?

The investment centre is our fund platform giving you access to the UK’s leading fund providers in one convenient place. We have relationships with the leading fund groups in the UK to offer access to over 3,700 funds. The investment centre offers discounted fund charges and lower minimum investment entry levels when compared to going direct to the fund manager yourself.

Make the most of the investment centre with James Hay Online, where fund prices are updated daily so you can see how your funds are performing and you can trade 24/7.

What is a fund?

A fund is an investment that puts together (or pools) the money of lots of individuals. A fund manager then invests that money on behalf of the investors in a wide range of assets. Different funds focus on different risk profiles, sectors, regions and objectives, so you need to find funds that match your objectives and time horizons. You can invest in an ‘active’ fund where a professional fund manager selects the investment in the portfolio with the aim of outperforming the market to give you superior returns. Or you can invest in ‘passive’ funds that track the performance of an index such as the FTSE 100.

Funds can be ‘retail’ or ‘institutional’. Retail funds are available to everyone while institutional funds are normally only available to professional and much higher value investors, typically pension companies. Please note: we offer institutional funds through Select and Wrap fund ranges but you can only access these if you have a financial adviser appointed.

Why invest in investment centre funds?

If you want help with managing your investments, then funds are worth considering as they give you access to professional fund management and means your money is spread across multiple assets, giving you exposure to companies and indices than you could not individually invest in directly and a diversified portfolio, which in theory should reduce your level of investment risk. There are different types of funds to match your risk profile and time horizons. There are equity funds suitable for investors with a higher risk tolerance and bond funds for those nearing retirement and looking to preserve capital.


You can access the fund ranges on the following products

Please note: * SIPP covers the Private Client SIPP and iSIPP.


Points to consider

The investment centre may not be suitable for all investors, and we strongly recommend that you talk to your financial adviser. If you do not have one, you can find a list of regulated advisers in your local area at www.unbiased.co.uk or by calling them on 0800 023 6868.

You can also find useful and impartial information about pensions, savings and investments on the MoneyHelper website www.moneyhelper.org.uk.

Capital at risk warning

The value of the investment centre funds is not guaranteed and can go down as well as up.

Sustainability Disclosure Requirements (SDR)

The Financial Conduct Authority have found that consumers experience difficulty in understanding the sustainability goals of investment funds.

To combat this, the FCA have introduced additional requirements on asset managers, requiring them to make it clear when a product is making a claim that it includes sustainability goals. You can find more information on their website.

To assist you with identifying assets using the new labels, we will be updating the Fund Search section of the James Hay Online Investment Centre to include SDR labels and links to SDR documentation. This will allow you to search funds based on the Sustainability Disclosure label (Focus, Impact, Improvers and Mixed Goals). There will also be a new fund research screen added specifically for the SDR related data on funds. 

You’ll start seeing labels on investment funds that have a specific environmental or social goal: 


The label means you’ll have access to clear and simple information on what that goal is and the approach to achieving it (full definition of the labels on the FCA webpage above).

From 31 July 2024: Asset managers can commence utilising the investment labels and customer facing disclosures to make clear to consumers how their product seeks to achieve positive sustainability outcomes.

From 2 December 2024: Asset managers who are using sustainability related terms in the naming or marketing of their products without a label must provide sustainability information explaining how it’s invested and why it doesn’t have a label.

Source:FCA

There are a couple of things to consider:

  1. Some funds will not have label but may still make sustainability claims, such as including ‘green’ or ‘low carbon’ in the name of the fund. This could be because the Asset manager has either decided not to have a label or does not meet the full FCA criteria to have a label.

  2. Any overseas funds are not currently included in the regulations and will not require any labels or disclosures regarding sustainability.

If you have any questions regarding investment labels, please contact your adviser, or visit the FCA’s website.

We’re unable to provide advice on which investments to choose for your pension, and the above information doesn’t serve as a substitute for advice.

If you’re uncertain about investing, you should seek advice from a regulated adviser. If you’d like to choose an adviser but don’t know where to start, MoneyHelper, a government backed financial guidance provider, have made it easy. Simply go to their website then select the ‘Financial Advice’ section.

You can also review other pension and investment related information on the MoneyHelper website.

Please note that if you have an adviser appointed, we’d expect your adviser to provide you with relevant sustainability disclosures and documentation (where applicable) during their investment recommendation process. Otherwise, you can access the documentation within the Investment Centre section of our platform.

If you want to understand more about the sustainability aspects of any fund, please speak to your adviser in the first instance.