Family Investments, the market leader in Child Trust Funds with over 370,000 registered accounts, has launched an ethical stakeholder Child Trust Fund.

Rising to meet the growing demand for ethical investments, Family’s latest Child Trust Fund (CTF) has been designed to help parents ensure the money they save for their children is not being invested in companies they believe are engaged in ‘unethical’ activities.

Family’s ethical stakeholder Child Trust Fund offers parents an opportunity for their children to benefit from the usual tax-efficiency of Child Trust Funds; with the added assurance that their money will not be invested into unethical companies that generate significant turnover from things like arms trading, animal testing for cosmetics, alcohol and tobacco sales; and a range of other practices many people find to be unethical.

Prior to Family Investments’ launch of its ethical stakeholder Child Trust Fund parents could only choose from a small pool of non-stakeholder equity accounts and one other stakeholder account.

Funds invested in Family Investments ethical CTF flow into its established Family Charities Ethical Trust, managed by Family fund managers, New Star. ”Ethical matters are of increasing interest to many people, says John Reeve, Chief Executive of Family Investments. “The informed consumer realises that what they buy and how they invest has an impact on the wider world. “As a leader in the children’s savings market we want to give parents the ability to try and do the right thing for their child.”

The launch of the fund followed research that 64 per cent of parents said they would choose an ethical Child Trust Fund over a standard one if the terms and prospective returns were the same.

Family Investments is currently offering a free gift to parents who set up a direct debit when they open their Ethical Child Trust Fund.

Parents can select from a choice of gift vouchers to spend on eco-friendly products, or have a tree planted in British managed woodland.