How Financial Advice works

Receiving ongoing financial advice is an important factor towards you meeting your financial goals. With a personalised financial plan and regular ongoing meetings, we can help you stay on course to meet these. Financial matters can be complex, but receiving financial advice is not. Below, we illustrate how the process works and how simple it can be.

Our Client Process

Each client will have their own financial objectives and goals, and the recommendations are unique to each. However, the process of advice is very similar for most clients, and below, we try and illustrate this to give you a better understanding of the process.

Step 1

Gathering Information. It may seem obvious, but before any financial planning can start, we will need to know about you, your lifestyle, expectations, goals and personal requirements. To do this, we will complete a 'FactFind' by asking lots of questions about your current financial situation. This information will allow us to give the very best financial advice to suit your specific needs.  

It will also allow us to introduce Steggles Wealth and how St. James's Place manages the investments we look after for our clients. We'll also go over the potential charges of becoming a client and the ongoing service.

FactFind

The types of information we'll collect on the 'FactFind' includes but is not limited to:

Personal information
Employment
Income/Expenditure
Assets and Liabilities
Objectives and attitudes
Existing and future needs
Knowledge and experience of investment
The value of an investment with St. James's Place will be directly linked to the performance of the funds you select and the value can therefore go down as well as up.  You may get back less than you invested.
Step 2

The main objective is to identify your financial needs by gaining deeper insights into which areas of your life you've already provided for and which need more development.  
During the meeting, our advisers will endeavour to establish what your objectives are, what you wish to be able to achieve and any ambitions you may have, as this will form the basis of our research to provide you with the best plans moving forward. 

Once we have established your objectives and goals, it's then time to decide how to realise them and to plan to achieve them.

The Research

With the support of our paraplanning team, we will conduct product research specific to your personal needs to identify the most suitable recommendations to help achieve your personal financial goals and objectives. These could include things such as:

Best solutions for your Pension & Retirement Planning
Helping to reduce an inheritance tax liability
Other Tax and Wealth/Trust Planning
Helping to find the most suitable mortgage or re-mortgage for your needs
Aiming for the best return on your Investments
Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage.

The value of an investment with St. James's Place will be directly linked to the performance of the funds you select and the value can therefore go down as well as up.  You may get back less than you invested.

Trusts are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Step 3

After the research stage has been completed, we will provide you with personal recommendations and solutions which aim to achieve your goals and objectives. These recommendations are not set in stone, and you don't have to take them up. However, they are based on the best and most effective way we feel will help achieve your goals.  

Once Paperwork is signed

After discussions relating to the recommended ways we aim to achieve your desired goals, it's our job to implement these plans. Our administration team will handle and manage all applications and paperwork concerning the products or plans selected and ensure they are implemented correctly and on time.

Step 4

An ongoing relationship with our clients has always been integral to our business, as we believe that it can add significant value to both individuals, families and businesses.
We strive on having relationships with our clients for years by having regular ongoing meetings.  

Dependent on your circumstances, the ongoing relationship may vary. However, the primary purpose of this is to view your ongoing position to monitor if the investments or action plans selected continue to meet your requirements on an ongoing basis.

Regular Meetings

Everybody's situation will change over time. People grow older, and their lifestyle adapts with them, so it's important for us to see our clients each year.

Through regular reviews, we can also develop our planning strategies over time to take into account your changing circumstances and objectives, developments in economic conditions, legislation (taxation etc), new ideas and financial products.