What’s an IFA?
So what is an IFA?
Highly qualified expertise in todays complex global financial arena is worth it’s weight in gold. Whether you’re shopping for a stakeholder pension, need help with understanding annuities or have a young family to protect with low cost term assurance - financial advice in these matters will come in three shapes and sizes. It’s important to understand the distinction between all three…
1) Independent financial advisers
Because these advisers are not tied to any one company they will give you access to the widest choice of financial solutions from any number of companies and products. You will be given the option of paying for their advice by fee or by commission - the choice will be entirely yours, but by law they are required to offer you access to their services via fee based payments.
If you choose fee based options they will be agreed with you at the outset of any working relationship and you may elect to pay either by the hour or by set fees for advice given as agreed in consultation with your Independent Financial Adviser during your initial meeting. Set fees are outlined in a scale of charges which you can ask for. If you choose fee based service you will not have to pay commission.
Additionally some Independent Financial Advisers are increasingly offering clients the choice of retaining their services via a monthly fixed retainer which gives you access to their services without incurring for the most part extra fees (Clients may still pay additional fees/commission on lower cost retainers dependent on service level agreed - it’s important to clarify at the outset what extra fees if any will be in addition to any monthly retainer agreement).
For high net worth individuals looking for proactive portfolio management service from their adviser this is a valuable provision. These people may ask for advice as often as they require without worrying over excess time being charged against their account.
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