Government urged to widen access to ethical investments
THE GOVERNMENT is being urged to make social investment options more accessible to the public.
Social investment platform Ethex is calling for the Chancellor Philip Hammond to use this week’s Budget to make it easier for people to invest their savings ethically.
The platform says there are already options to invest in an ethical way, highlighting the Innovative Finance ISA as an example, which can be used with renewables peer-to-peer platform Abundance.
Ethex says more needs to be done to boost the ethical investment sector and is calling more education and for better promotions of social impact investing opportunities.
Read more: P2P sector urges chancellor to set bold housing agenda in Budget
“There is no reason why more people shouldn’t be able to hold positive investments. Options are available through self-invested personal pensions or the IFISA but the industry needs to be encouraged to make these more accessible,” Lisa Ashford, chief executive of Ethex, said.
“While there are products available to retail investors with a low cost of entry, if we are to take this to a bigger audience, I would encourage the government to educate on the benefits of investment, and make it easier for people to invest by simplifying and extending tax relief further through schemes such as the enterprise investment scheme or social investment tax relief.”
Read more: Chancellor to announce support package for scale-ups
Read more: IFISAs, the golden ticket
