Investor profile

The Investor Profile page is organised into sections you complete in turn. Personal Details holds your name, date of birth, country of residence, and country of citizenship. Investor Background covers your source of income, annual income, savings, investment knowledge, and the products you have invested in before. Investment Objectives records your primary investment objective, investment horizon, Risk Level, and the Portfolio Volatility you are comfortable accepting. From these answers the page derives two read-only sections: Risk Profile and Portfolio Recommendation.

pfolio classifies every completed profile into one of five risk profiles, each tied to a band of expected annual volatility: Very Low Risk (below 5%), Low Risk (5% to 7.5%), Moderate Risk (7.5% to 10%), High Risk (10% to 15%), and Very High Risk (above 15%).

The classification is deliberately conservative. It starts from the lowest of four answers—your self-reported Risk Level, the Portfolio Volatility you are comfortable with, your savings buffer, and your investment horizon—so the most cautious of these caps the result. Your investment objective can then lower it further—choosing Capital Preservation as your objective sets the Very Low Risk profile outright. Your knowledge and experience adjust it too: if you report yourself a complete novice with no prior experience, and your objective is not Capital Preservation, the profile is held at no lower than Low Risk.

Each risk profile maps to one of pfolio's pre-built portfolios. Very Low Risk receives no recommendation, because none of the pre-built portfolios sit in that band; the others map to a low-volatility, medium-volatility, or higher-volatility portfolio. The recommendation is a starting point, not a constraint—you can follow it, pick another portfolio, or design your own in the Portfolio Builder. See choosing your portfolio for how to weigh the alternatives.

The first time you complete your profile, if you have not already chosen a My Portfolio, pfolio sets the recommended portfolio as your My Portfolio and creates its allocations asset list—see managing your portfolios. Selecting a portfolio whose risk level differs from your profile's recommendation, or a custom portfolio, which carries no risk level, raises the Portfolio Risk Level Notice, also described in managing your portfolios.

Open the page from Settings, then Investor Profile. Work through each section and save. Saving confirms that the information you provided is accurate and that you have reviewed the risk profile classification and portfolio recommendation shown to you.

A profile stays valid for one year. pfolio prompts you to review it 30 days before it is due, on the Portfolios Overview and on the tools that depend on it, and treats the profile as out of date once a year has passed.

A complete, current profile is required—alongside a paid plan—to use the portfolio tools. A missing or out-of-date profile blocks them until you complete or renew it.

• Portfolio Builder: building a portfolio, or opening a portfolio to view its full configuration.
• Rebalancing Tool: loading a portfolio's target allocations into the tool that turns a portfolio into trades—see rebalancing your portfolio.
• Allocations: the Allocations charts in Analysis and Comparison.