Financial Advisor Help Needed

Ibrahim5

An IFA is only interested in his business. He wants a few clients with massive amounts who pay a high rate of ongoing fees. This maximises ongoing fees otherwise as 'money for doing hardly anything'. When you have enough clients with massive amounts you can sell the business and retire yourself. Happily throw all your customers under the bus. Making it money for doing less than hardly anything wouldn't help. They still wouldn't touch people with small pots. IFAs came to our workplace loads of times touting for business. They only spoke to high earners. No interest in workers with average incomes whatsoever.
An IFA with 100 customers with £400K pot paying 0.5%=£200K a year income
An IFA with 100 customers with £40K pot paying 0.5%=£20K a year income
IFAs aren't going to touch £40K pots.

LHW99

Ibrahim5 said:

An IFA is only interested in his business. He wants a few clients with massive amounts who pay a high rate of ongoing fees. This maximises ongoing fees otherwise as 'money for doing hardly anything'. When you have enough clients with massive amounts you can sell the business and retire yourself. Happily throw all your customers under the bus. Making it money for doing less than hardly anything wouldn't help. They still wouldn't touch people with small pots. IFAs came to our workplace loads of times touting for business. They only spoke to high earners. No interest in workers with average incomes whatsoever.
An IFA with 100 customers with £400K pot paying 0.5%=£200K a year income
An IFA with 100 customers with £40K pot paying 0.5%=£20K a year income
IFAs aren't going to touch £40K pots.

They are unlikely to be able to help clients with small pots because the annual cost of insurances and compliance makes it uneconomic. I / my OH ran a non-financial small business (many IFA's businesses are small, they aren't all part of large companies yet) and if we couldn't make £5k per month, we wouldn't get paid. Insurance, equipment maintenance, software, utilities all had to be paid before we did, not to mention the VAT and any PAYE / NICs. That was without reckoning in employing any other people like secretaries etc.

This is why there is an "advice gap" and why so many people feel overwhelmed. Pensionwise / Money Helper may be very basic to a lot of forumites, but what they offer in explanations is a very good start for many.

https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en

mksysb

Sarah_Kayte said:

My Mum and Dad are on a moderately low income and have no savings. My Dad has a pot of around £40k in a pension, which stubbornly he didn't pay to have managed after it matured. It has now lost several thousand pounds and they have asked me for help as to what to do. I have absolutely no idea about pensions and said I would try and find a recommended financial advisor to help them. They live in Chester. Can any one point me in the right direction?

Many Thanks

There's a free government service, will it be approriate for you?

https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement/pension-wise