What Makes a Good Financial Planner

To provide excellent Financial Planning Services the following qualities are needed:

Communication

Of course the most important person in all of this is the client.

The Financial Planner is there to assist the client reach their goals.

The first and most important step is to listen to the client and really understand what those goals are.

Not all clients know what all the options are, so they may require help to clarify those goals. It is important to guide the client but not to lead them - it is their choice and people have different requirements and life styles.

Here are a few examples of different requirements that clients may have.

• Some clients would like to know everything and be provided with a great deal of information.
• Some clients feel burdened with too much information and would like to keep things very simple.
• For some clients their top priority is to save as much as they can to accumulate for their retirement.
• Other clients would like to put money aside for a special event such as their children's education, house renovation or medical expenses.
• Some clients would like more risky / uncertain investments click here for details of how risk and returns are related whereas other clients have a great fear of loss and would like the least risky.
• Some clients will invest in any product and only care about returns.
• Other clients have ethical or energetic integrity issues around investing in certain shares or with certain companies that they feel do not do the right thing.

The role of the Financial Planner is to assist the client to achieve their goals whatever they may be.

To do this the Financial Planner needs the intent, ability and access mentioned above as well as good communication skills and the time and desire to really listen to and work with the client.

Access

It is important to have low cost access to the best products and funds available.

• Many products are not available to the public but only through financial planners.
• Some products are not available to the public and are also not available to most planners. Dimensional is an excellent product and one such example.
• Some planners are limited as to which products they can offer their clients because they are affiliated with a certain group or bank and can only recommend products from their group's approved list.

• Some planners rely on commissions and will not recommend an excellent industry fund because it does not pay commission.
• Often the same product is available to different planners at quite different rates. If the planner gets the product cheaper, they can then choose whether or not to pass on the better rate - much like mortgage rates.
• The same point about rates applies to insurance.

It is also necessary to have access to the vast amount of data that is available.

In Your Interest Financial Planning as a member of FYG Planners has access to great products, research and services.

Ability

A Financial Planner has to gain certain professional qualifications and government licences in order to be allowed to give advice. These qualifications in themselves do not make a good advisor. Other important requirements include:

• a natural aptitude
• good numerical skills
• business sense, experience and judgment
• ability to listen to, coach and work with the client as required
• an ability to digest and retain large amounts of information
• good computer skills to model scenarios and work efficiently
• the ability to know which of the plethora of options is the best or the right one for your client
• keeping up to date with the latest research and financial information
• continual education, sharing and networking with other excellent financial planners
• a connection and sharing of information with other professionals such as accountants, lawyers and insurance brokers.

Intent

A financial planner's intention must be to act solely in the client's interest. A good code of ethics to adopt is the one outlined in the Law Society's Practice Rules:

"Practitioners should serve their clients competently and diligently. They should be acutely aware of the fiduciary nature of the relationship with their clients, and always deal with their clients fairly, free of the influence of any interest which may conflict with a client's best interests. Practitioners should maintain the confidentiality of their clients' affairs, but give their clients the benefit of all information relevant to their clients' affairs of which they have knowledge."

According to the dictionary, ‘fiduciary' means both ‘trusted' and ‘confidential'.

Note that the above rules are for lawyers and have the force of law for lawyers.

They are not rules that currently apply to financial planners. In Your Interest Financial Planning adheres to the above code of ethics.