Wednesday’s autumn statement included a range of tweaks, reforms and funding pledges that the government hopes will ultimately boost investment and drive UK growth in the future.
These were far from limited to big business with sweeping changes to pensions and individual savings accounts also in the works.
One key change that the government hopes will encourage investment on a personal level is the opening up of fractional shares as permitted ISA investments.
That is, investments made using ISA funds will no longer be bound to purchasing whole shares in companies.
Companies with more substantial share prices, therefore, will become far more accessible for ISA holders wanting to invest.
“Although our clients have a strong bias to home markets, they are increasingly looking for value overseas,” Hargreaves Lansdown money and market head Susannah Streeter said.
“But, this often isn’t possible through individual holdings due to high share prices being carried by companies listed in the US.”
Given the likes of Apple, Microsoft, and Google-owner Alphabet boast share prices in the hundreds of pounds, ISA rules had essentially priced people out of investing in these.
This has also impacted people’s ability to build a “properly diversified portfolio,” according to interactive investor analyst Myron Jobson, with some UK-based firms also out of reach.
Given many retail investors may be saving less than £100 a month, he continued, investing in key growth companies - such as the two dozen or so in the FTSE 100 priced in the tens of pounds mark - had been difficult.
In light of Jeremy Hunt’s plan for such change to benefit businesses, Steve Croucher of professional services firm Winterflood Business Services suggested the move could work.
In fact, the opening up of fractional shares contracts to ISA holders could deal a “significant boost to the stock market in the coming years,” he said, as savers get access to a “full spectrum of equities”.