What do I do as an Independent Financial Advisor

Many times when I introduce myself as an Independent Financial Advisor to others, 7 out of 10 persons ask me if I sell insurance or sell unit trust.

So what is a Financial Adviser and what does Independent means?

First: What do I Do?

My clients engage me to help them identify their financial goals and objectives, and help them to put in a plan to achieve these goals. This means to:

· identify your financial goals at various stages of your life
· develop a plan of attack to help you achieve these goals
· review your progress and
· re-assess your plan along the way to make sure it stays relevant

Financial Planning is a process, a journey and a road map to reach your financial destinations. It is a process because your financial goals change as you move from one stage of your life to another stage.

When trying to identify your goals, it means defining what you are trying to achieve.

Are you trying to save for a home deposit, a new car, a holiday?

· Do you want to build an investment portfolio that can withstand shocks and yet give you a decent rate of returns between 6% to 12% annually?
· How much should you save to pay for your children’s education? Should you take up an Investment Link Policy or investing your money for your children education fund? what is the best options?
· Are you planning retirement? How much do you need? Will you outlive your retirement fund?
· How to protect you, your family and your home against unforeseen disaster events?
· Make sense of what’s Medisave, Medishield and Medifund in planning for medical care for you and your family?
· Are you being retrenched and you need advice about how to manage your financial affairs?
· Have you received an inheritance and a windfall (big bonus, Toto Winning) and you need help about how to investment and manage it wisely?

After you’ve defined your goals you’ll then probably want to develop a plan of attack and prioritise what’s most important. This may include:

· Restructuring your insurance portfolio to eliminate waste and redundancy. Are you paying too much for the protection that you receive?
· Re-financing your mortgage to take advantage of cheaper borrowing
· Rebalancing your existing investment to make it less risky and help you sleep better

Working together, we will develop a financial plan, an investment strategy, and an asset allocation model.

Second: What is the difference between an Independent Financial Advisor and an Insurance Agent or a Bank Relationship Manager?

An insurance agent is an employee of the Insurance Company that he or she represents. He can ONLY recommend to you the products that his company sells. Every company has its share of great products. But do beware of "Lemon" in its basket! For example, Toyota produced great automobiles. Are all its automobiles equally reliable? No. Recently it has to recall many Toyota Wish from the market because there is a inherent defects in this model.

Similiarly, in the financial market, some products from Great Eastern, NTUC, Prudential, AIA are great, but not all. The truth is an Insurance Agent or a Bank Relationship Manager can only recommend to you the products that his company produced and sells. On the other hand, an Independent Financial Consultant represents your interest, and will source for you financial products from the market that Best Meet Your Need!

"As your Financial Adviser, I am your Personal Financial Coach. You can ask me any question on financial matters, whether it is personal or business. I will help you in drawing out what you really want and translate them into realistic, concrete financial objectives. I will provide financial options for you to choose [and pointing out the pluses and minuses to you.] After you have consider the options and decided, we will then draw up a financial plan based on the time frame your specified on how best to achieve your goals!"