Holding a Balance or Jar as Stocks doesn’t change what you can do with it.
But there are 3 important things to keep in mind:
If you add or receive money, we'll invest it in the fund we’ve chosen
If you spend, or send, money we'll sell some of your investment
You can only take out up to *97% of your Balance or Jar
We handle the investment transactions behind the scenes — by buying or selling units in the fund.
Understanding units
If you think of the fund as a cake, a unit is a slice of that cake. The price of a unit can go up or down daily, depending on how the fund performs.
If you buy units and their price goes up, your investment has grown. And you’ll get more money than you started with if you choose to sell at that price.
But if their price goes down, your investment is worth less. So you’ll have less money than you started with if you choose to sell at that price.
Adding or receiving money
Whenever you add or receive money, we’ll buy units worth the same cash value.
We buy units once every working day, at the trading cut-off time — which is 07:00 UK time. If you add money after that, we’ll buy units on the next working day at the cut-off time.
It can take up to 2 working days to complete a buy order for your units. When we’re done, we’ll update the total and available amounts in your Balance or Jar based on the total value of the units you hold.
Tip: If you don’t want to invest money that’s been recently added, just make sure to withdraw it before the next cut-off time.
Taking money out
You can instantly access up to *97% of your Balance or Jar at any time.
You can do this in 3 ways:
Spending money from your Balance, using your Wise card
Sending money from your Balance
Moving money out into a different Balance or Jar
When you take money out, we’ll sell units worth the same cash value at the next trading cut-off time — which is 07:00 UK time. This sale covers the cost of your transaction. You’ll see the total and available amounts in your Balance or Jar change to reflect this.
It can take up to 2 working days to complete a sale. When we’re done, you might see the amounts in your Balance or Jar change slightly. This is because the price of units can go up or down while the sale is being processed.
We only buy or sell units once per day. If you’ve made a few purchases, or added money, we’ll calculate the total we need to buy or sell at the trading cut-off time to make sure everything matches up.
Tip: If you’re worried about accidentally spending from a Balance you hold as Stocks — set aside the money in a Jar instead. Then change how it’s held, from Cash to Stocks.
Learn how to set aside money in a Jar
How much of my money is available to me?
When you hold a Balance or Jar as Stocks, we want you to have as much access to your money as possible.
To do this, we give you instant access to 97% of your money.
We reserve the other 3% to cover any large changes to the value of your investment. We do this to reduce the chances of your Balance going into negative.
This means that you’ll see two numbers in your Balance or Jar when you hold it as Stocks.
The top number is your total amount. This is how much your Balance or Jar is currently worth.
It’s calculated by adding these two things together:
The valuation we’ve given to your investment, based on the latest price of the units you hold.
Any money you’ve added that hasn’t been invested yet.
The bottom number is your available amount. This is the money you can spend, send, or withdraw instantly.
It’s calculated by adding these two things together:
Any money you’ve added that hasn’t been invested yet. We invest any new money you add at the trading cut-off time, which is 07:00 UK time each working day.
97% of any money that’s already invested and held as units in the fund. You can spend up to this 97% until the next time we get a new valuation for your investment.
We get a new valuation for your investment based on the price of your units at the start of every working day.
So as a general rule, excluding any new money you add, you can use 97% of your Balance between 07:00 UK time on one working day, until the start of the next working day.
If you need access to all of the money in your Balance or Jar, you’ll need to change it back to cash. This can take up to 2 working days — but can take an extra working day if you still have transactions in progress.