Who needs investment advice? Although many people recognise the sense and rationale of savings – and of making use of those savings for investments that make their money work even harder for them – relatively few people actually do so. Perhaps one of the biggest reasons for this failure to make the most of the money they have worked so hard to earn is the bewildering range of savings and investment products currently on the market. Paradoxically, perhaps, the wider the range of choice, the less people seem inclined to save or invest. Yet the mystery of making your money work its hardest for you can be easily solved through sound investment advice.



The Independent Financial Adviser

One of the roles of the Independent Financial Adviser is to lift any veil of mystery to savings and investment, provide advice which will guide you through the many and varied options available, and produce a savings and investment plan tailored specifically to your needs. The guess work can therefore be taken out of your savings and investment decisions and replaced by the professional's knowledge of the huge choice of investment plans, funds and products on the market.

What he (or she) might do

Typically, your independent financial adviser will want to sit down with you, ask lots of questions about your finances, and build up a picture of your means, your intentions and your perceived savings and investment options. Armed with this knowledge about you, the adviser will then go away and research the market in order to begin constructing a potential portfolio of investment options for you.

In constructing such a portfolio, the adviser will aim to give you advice that:

- profiles the risks inherent in the various investment options;

- provides tax efficiency in the recommended approaches to be taken; and

- incorporates advice on the trust aspects of your potential investments.

Some of the options

The investment advice you receive will recognise first and foremost that every investor is unique. Because you are unique, there is no one, off-the-shelf portfolio of products that the adviser is likely to recommend. Instead, the suggested portfolio and the investment advice that accompanies it will be tailored specifically to your own personal circumstances and financial needs.

Nevertheless, the suggested portfolio will probably compare the relative merits of some or all of at least the following:

- Bank or building society savings accounts;

- National Savings Accounts;

- Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs);

- Shares;

- Investment Trusts;

- Unit Trusts and Open-ended Investment Companies; and

- Investment Bonds (both on- and off-shore).

In other words, you could expect the resulting investment advice to cover the whole gamut of investment options. Some of them you will certainly have heard of already and may even be thoroughly familiar with; others might be new and represent previously unconsidered avenues of investment. But the investment advice you receive from an independent financial advisor will be objective, well-informed and suited to your own best interests.