pensioner with £65K to invest-low risk

dutchism1958

Morning All,

My wife has £65K to invest,she is 75 and is looking to take a low risk route to protecting her hard-earned savings which are at present with a local finance company in Cofunds Maxi ISA,Fidelity Maxi ISA & Standard Life Capital Investment Bond.
The finance company is trying to get her to tranfer all money into an Standard Life Wrap which they say is a cost effective way of managing her money.
She is looking at both cash & S&S ISA's and is willing to take some risk but not a lot.Happy to lock it away for up to 5 years.
Many recommend H-L as a good company to invest with a platform.
Any advice greatly received.
Thanks.Dutch.

atush

You are on the pensions forum. I suggest you ask this on the savings and investment forum instead?

dunstonh

The finance company is trying to get her to tranfer all money into an Standard Life Wrap which they say is a cost effective way of managing her money.

There can be logic for consolidation. Convenience and cost for example. (cost is not always cheaper though). Although Std Life Wrap failed our due diligence as it wasnt really a full wrap but a collection of bolted on products. Plus, standard Life reps pro-actively try to get you to use them by telling lies to their customers and as lower cost and better functional platforms exist, it was better to eliminate them on our platform due diligence (all firms should have carried out platform due diligence based on an FSA thematic review).

The concept overall is fine. We have moved all our Fidelity holdings away from them as we felt their option is weak (only offering commission based investments that pay them a cut, their service is dire and administration is out of the ark). Once upon a time, Fidelity were a market leader. Things change. You have to move with the times. So, what is being proposed is fine in concept as long as you are being charged fairly (for example, we dont charge when moving providers/platform as that is part of the ongoing servicing. You need to be wary of firms wanting to take new money from you at silly levels for moving it. Are they doing it for your benefit or are they doing it to raise money for themselves?)

Many recommend H-L as a good company to invest with a platform.

If you plan to DIY then HL is fine. it is not the best platform but its fine for most DIY investors. An adviser would not go near HL as it just doubles the charges (HL keep some or all of the adviser remuneration. So, an adviser would have to charge on top. Plus, as I said, there are better platforms that an adviser could use to suit advice clients.

xylophone

standard Life reps pro-actively try to get you to use them by telling lies to their customers

Always? Invariably? Some of them? All of them?

You can back this up with chapter and verse?

I am rather taken aback that anyone can make such a statement which seems to verge on the libellous/defamatory?

bigfreddiel

dunstonh wrote: »

Plus, standard Life reps pro-actively try to get you to use them by telling lies to their customers

not a problem - if any one lies on any financial transaction sue them, report them to the police for a criminal act, report them to the fsa or whatever they are called, get the finance ombudsman involved - in fact take them to the cleaners - it could be quite profitabl -

Thanks for the tipoff dunstonh - i always suspect that financial professionals were lying hounds and now iknow to avoid Standard Life reps

cheers

fj

dutchism1958

Thanks Dunstonh,appreciate your comments.For non-experts like myself it is a minefield out there,so any help appreciated!.

dunstonh

Always? Invariably? Some of them? All of them?

Far too many IFAs have examples of their clients being actively marketed by Std Life reps and being told porkies. I had one example of a client being told that they could cut out the "middle man" (me) and arrange the open market option through them as it would give better results. The problem with that argument is that Std Life was limited panel and not whole of market and Std life became the middle man and it didnt cut anyone out. In my case, the result I provided was far better than Std Life could get. However, how many consumers would not give their IFA a chance and fall for the rubbish spouted by sales reps. I have three examples of Std life telling a client something incorrect to get sales or me being told porkies by my Std Life agent (one thing he encouraged was actually shut down by std life for abuse. So, at least when they were aware of issues, they took action as a company).