Family Investments responds to the HMRC Quarterly Child Trust Fund Statistics

    /24-7PressRelease/ - BRIGHTON, UK, September 03, 2008 - Miles Bingham, Head of Savings and Investments at Family Investments, the UK's leading Child Trust Fund provider, commented:

"The latest figures reveal that there has been only a small improvement in the percentage of parents opening a CTF account for their child"

"Both Government and Providers have been striving to generate greater levels of take up, but the latest figures demonstrate how challenging it has been to move things in the right direction with current take up running at below the long-term average. Our fundamental belief is that we would like to see take up at a much higher level, and believe this can only be achieved through a simplification of the whole scheme and by concentrating on providing parents with one clear type of account, the stakeholder version. This action will remove the burden of choice and make the scheme more attractive to busy parents and for those people who struggle to understand the relatively complex options out in front of them. Family has always lobbied for a stakeholder-only product, which is the Government de-fault option for parents who fail to set up an account."

About Family Investments

Family Investments is the trading name of Family Assurance Friendly Society - one of the UK's largest Friendly Societies with in excess of 1.7bn funds under management and over 1m policies

Family Investments is the market leading Child Trust Fund provider with our Child Trust Fund account available in approximately 18,000 high street locations - four times greater than any other provider. Family's partnerships include the Post Office, Barclays, Sainsbury's Bank, Bounty, Coventry Building Society, Bradford & Bingley, Clydesdale Bank, Northern Bank, Yorkshire Bank, Nectar and Early Learning Centre

Family Investments is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority

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