Antony Ransom Independent Financial Adviser Ltd

113 Main Street, Burley-in-Wharfedale, Ilkley, West Yorkshire, LS29 7JN

1. INTRODUCTION

Antony Ransom Independent Financial Adviser Ltd is a financial planning business, focussed on helping you understand and plan for your financial future. We are also able to act on your behalf in advising you on investments, pensions (including transfers) and non-investment insurance contracts (protection).

This agreement provides details about our services to you and how we charge, so it is important that you read it fully. This information is designed to give you an idea of:

• What we do and how we do it (our services)
• What it is likely to cost and how you can pay us (our adviser charges)

If there is something you do not understand, please ask us to explain it.

2. OUR SERVICES

Whatever financial decisions you have to make, the first step towards making the right decisions is to establish a clear understanding of your financial needs.

As people seek financial advice for many different reasons, it is important that we understand exactly who you are and what you want to achieve. At our first meeting we will gather information about you to help define your needs and priorities.

We offer both initial and ongoing services. Any products we have arranged for you will only be kept under review as part of an agreed ongoing service for which you agree to pay. Our ongoing services are optional. Our services include:

• Financial planning – it is important to identify what you might want to achieve and how you can do this. We can help you to identify your goals and create a plan for your finances to help you achieve them
• Retirement planning – it is important to know whether the money you are saving towards retirement will provide you with sufficient funds to meet your retirement objectives. We can work with you to proactively plan for your retirement and help you decide on the options available once at retirement
• Protection planning – most of us want to protect the things that are important to us, our family, business and quality of life. Protection planning can help to provide peace of mind in the event of your income changing due to unexpected events. We can help you plan for the best way to protect you, your family or your business

Any advice or recommendation that we offer to you, will only be given after we have assessed your needs and considered your financial objectives and attitude to any risks that may be involved.

We will also take into account any restrictions that you wish to place on the type of products you would be willing to consider.

3. OUR ADVICE

We offer independent investment advice. This means that we consider a wide range of financial strategies and products. Our recommendation will be based on a comprehensive and fair analysis of the market, which we constantly review to ensure that the services and products we offer are appropriate for our clients.

Where we recommend particular investment strategies and products to you, these will be selected based on your personal circumstances, financial goals and objectives.

We will consider a number of factors, including the services you need, the cost of investing, how much risk you are prepared to accept in an investment product and how much of a drop in its value you could withstand.

The areas we can advise on include but are not limited to:

We do not provide advice in relation to individual share holdings. If this is something you need assistance with, we can refer you to a stockbroker. In addition, we do not provide advice on options, futures and other derivative contracts as we believe that these are unlikely to be suitable for our clients.

Our advised protection planning services are suitable if you are looking for the best way to protect you, your family or your business through products such as critical illness cover, health insurance and life cover.

Where we provide protection planning services we are an insurance intermediary and will provide advice which is based on a fair and personal analysis of the market from a range of insurers.

4. OUR INITIAL ADVISER CHARGES

For any aspect of our financial planning, all charges and fees will be fully disclosed to you. We will not charge you until we have discussed your payment options and agreed with you how we are to be paid. We will also let you know if there are any other costs that might arise in connection with the services we provide to you.

Our actual charges and fees (in pounds and pence) will be agreed with you before we do any work and we will explain your payment options too. We will also let you know if and when any fees are subject to Value Added Tax (VAT).

We provide you with an initial consultation free of charge. This helps us to understand your financial objectives and will confirm how we can support you in working towards these. We will also discuss the cost, and levels, of our services both initially and throughout our relationship with you.

We charge our services by way of a fee, often referred to as an ‘adviser charge’. The adviser charge you pay will be shown as a fixed fee or a fixed fee based on a percentage of the amount you invest.

We will discuss your payment options with you and answer any questions you may have.

Financial Review and Recommendation

This can be a continuation from the initial discussion, where agreed, or a further appointment. This process covers the:

• gathering of information about your existing financial arrangements, your personal circumstances, objectives and desired plans for your future
• Develop a detailed financial forecast to help create a road map for your future
• understanding of your investment knowledge and attitude and tolerance towards investment risk
• recommendation of an investment solution that matches your risk profile and the subsequent assessment and suitability of any existing holdings and products
• arranging a second appointment to explain and discuss our initial recommendations in detail

Our charge for the Financial Review and Recommendation is a fixed fee of £1,000 payable at the conclusion of the review.

Policy Arrangement & Implementation

Should you instruct us to proceed with any of our recommendations we will act for you in the following ways:

• Provide you with a Suitability Report containing our recommendations and issued to you prior to the implementation of any arrangements
• Handle all fund and policy administration on your behalf
• Provide regular updates to keep you informed of progress
• Ensure all your documents are issued in line with your expectations
• Provide confirmation of all actions taken on your behalf in writing

We will not charge you until we have agreed how we are to be paid and confirmation of this amount will be set out in our Fee Agreement, issued separately.

Whether you buy a product or not, you will pay us a fee for our advice and services, which will become payable upon issue of our recommendations. A full breakdown of our charges is provided below:

Investment Planning

Initial Adviser Charges – Lump Sum Investments (including pensions)

Our charge for the implementation service is based on a percentage of the amount you invest and/or transfer.

• 1% of the amount invested/transferred

There is a minimum initial adviser charge of £500 and a maximum initial adviser charge of £4,000

Example 1:         if we arrange an investment on your behalf for £50,000, our fee would be £500.

(total fee of £1,500. i.e. the minimum implementation charge of £500, plus the Financial Review and Recommendation fee of £1,000)

Example 2:         if we arrange an investment on your behalf for £100,000, our fee would be £1,000.

(total fee of £2,000. i.e. 1% of £100,000, plus the Financial Review and Recommendation fee of £1,000)

Example 3:         if we arrange an investment on your behalf for £250,000, our fee would be £2,500.

(total fee of £3,500. i.e. 1% of £250,000, plus the Financial Review and Recommendation fee of £1,000)

Example 4:         if we arrange an investment on your behalf for £500,000, our implementation charge would be ordinarily be £5,000. As this exceeds the maximum initial adviser implementation charge of £4,000, the total fee would be £4,000 maximum implementation charge and £1,000 review and recommendation fee, £5,000 in total.

Initial Adviser Charges – Regular Premiums

Our charge for implementing a regular premium savings or investment plan is 1% of the first 12 months regular premiums.

Example 1:         If your monthly contribution is £250, our total initial adviser charge would be £1,030 (i.e. 1% of £3,000, plus the Financial Review and Recommendation fee of £1,000)

Example 1:         If your monthly contribution is £500, our total initial adviser charge would be £1,060 (i.e. 1% of £6,000, plus the Financial Review and Recommendation fee of £1,000)

 Initial Adviser Charges – Payment

The payment can be paid by deduction from your investment, upon receipt by the product provider, or by direct payment by you. It may also be possible to pay by a combination of the two methods.

You should note that, when paid through the investments, it may reduce your personal tax thresholds and/or exemption levels. Where this happens we will discuss it with you and confirm it in your personal suitability report.

For Regular Premiums, Payment of the Financial Review & Recommendation fee, Policy Arrangement & Implementation charge will be taken by direct payment only.

Protection Planning

Our charge for the implementation service is by commission only.

Where we are paid by commission we will tell you the amount before we carry out any business for you. Although you may pay nothing to us up front, this does not mean that our services are free.  You still pay us indirectly through deductions from the amount you pay into your product.

5. OTHER CHARGES

Depending on the services we provide, there may be costs and charges (including taxes), not charged by us, but related to the financial products we arrange for you. These charges may be one-off charges (payable up front) or charges payable on an ongoing basis. For example:

• Service costs – if your investments are held on a platform (an online investment administration service), the platform provider will make a charge for administering / managing your investments
• Investment costs – these are the costs relating to the manufacturing and managing of your investments – for example, fees charged by the investment fund manager, costs relating to investment transactions

We will always disclose any third-party costs as part of making our recommendations.

Aggregated costs and charges

Before we provide you with our advice we will add together all the costs and charges payable so that you are able to understand the overall costs of our services and recommendations.

This is referred to as aggregated costs and charges information.

6. OUR ONGOING ADVISER CHARGES

Our ongoing review service will include a robust repeatable appraisal of your investments under advice and a review of your objectives and desired plans for your future. Our review service includes:

List of Services	Ongoing Service	At Client Request
Annual statement of holdings
Access to The Personal Finance Portal
‘Face to face’ access to a Chartered Financial Planner during office hours.
Quarterly newsletters
Annual review meeting, which includes:
·       Review of Objectives/Financial Situation
·       Financial forecast and shortfall analysis	✔️
·       Review of Risk Profile & Capacity for Loss
·       Review of Investment Suitability (including fund switches if required)
·       Review of Asset Allocation (including rebalancing if required)
·       ‘Bed & ISA’ use of annual ISA allowances
·       Review of tax and legislative changes
·       Confirmation of aggregated costs & charges	✔️
Cost based on the total value of your investments	0.5%	Not applicable
Minimum Charge	£1,200 per annum*	Not applicable

* The ongoing service proposition is only available when you sign up to the minimum ongoing adviser charge

Our ongoing service charge does not just include an annual review. Once you are engaged as a client, you will have access to expertise and experience during office hours, via telephone, email or letter (additional fees may be charged, but only after agreement with you once we have a clear identification of the project to be undertaken).

Other areas of advice we are usually asked to consider include:

• Protection for you, and if appropriate, for your business
• Taxation Planning, to ensure that you maximise the use of allowances and investment structures
• Inheritance tax, will and estate planning including the use of trusts 

Ongoing Adviser Charges – Lump Sum Investments (including pensions)

We will agree separately the level of ongoing services at the time of, or prior to, making our recommendation(s) to you. Typically, our costs are a percentage of the amount under our advice, as follows:

• 5% per annum

There is a minimum ongoing adviser charge of £1,200.

Example 1:         if your investments are valued at £50,000, the ongoing adviser charge we would receive is £250 (i.e. 0.5% of £50,000). As this is less than the minimum ongoing service fee of £1,200, we would charge you £950 as the balance.

Example 2:         if your investments are valued at £100,000, the ongoing adviser charge we would receive is £500 (i.e. 0.5% of £100,000). As this is less than the minimum ongoing service fee of £1,200, we would charge you £700 as the balance.

Example 3:         if your investments are valued at £250,000, the ongoing adviser charge we would receive is £1,250 (i.e. 0.5% of £250,000)

Example 4:         if your investments are valued at £500,000, the ongoing adviser charge we would receive is £2,500 (i.e. 0.5% of £500,000)

Ongoing Adviser Charges – Payment

The ongoing adviser charges listed above can be deducted from your investments or paid directly by you.

If you wish to pay directly, we can arrange for a standing order to be set up on a monthly basis at 1/12 of the fee agreed so you can spread the payment over a 12-month period by standing order. At each anniversary of this agreement we will revalue your investments and notify you of any revised annual charges due to any fluctuation of your investments at that time.

If you wish to pay by deduction from the investments you hold, the payment of our ongoing adviser charge will be taken directly from your investment on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis. You should note that, when paid through the investments, it may reduce your personal tax thresholds and/or exemption levels. Where this happens, we will discuss it with you and confirm it in your personal suitability report.

7. OUR OBLIGATIONS

Recommendation

Before providing advice, we will assess your needs, consider your financial objectives and assess your attitude to any risks that may be involved.

If you do not wish to discuss a particular area of financial planning and that area should not form part of the advice given, we can exclude it, if you instruct us to do so. This might of course have a bearing on the advice that might have been given.

Before making any recommendations, we will carry out a suitability assessment so that we are able to act in your best interests.

We will confirm any recommendations we make in writing (our suitability report) along with details of any special risks that may be associated with the products or investment strategies we have recommended.

Where we agree to provide you with a service that includes an ongoing review of the suitability of the investments we have recommended, we will carry out this review at least annually. To do this we will need to make contact with you to assess whether the information we hold about you remains accurate and up to date. We will issue you with a report setting out the results of our assessment and, if relevant, any updated recommendations.

Please be aware that investments can fall, as well as rise, and that you may not get back the full amount invested. The price of investments we may recommend may depend on fluctuations in the financial markets, or other economic factors, which are outside our control. Past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance.

Specific warnings relevant to the investments, investment strategies or other products we arrange are provided in the relevant product literature provided.

We may occasionally recommend investments that are not readily realisable. We will only do this where appropriate but, if we do, we will draw your attention to the risks associated with the investments in our suitability report. There is a restricted market for such investments and, in some circumstances, it may not be possible to deal in the investment or obtain reliable information about its value.

Financial crime 

We are obliged to put in place controls to prevent our business from being used for money laundering and other forms of financial crime.

We will verify your identity before undertaking any business with you. To do this we may use electronic identity verification systems and we may conduct these checks from time to time throughout our relationship, not just at the beginning. The check may leave a ‘footprint’ on your credit file but it will not affect your credit rating.

Conflict of interests

Although we will always try to act in your best interests there may be situations where we or one of our other clients has some form of interest in the business being transacted for you.

If this happens or we become aware that our interests or those of one of our other clients’ conflict with your own interests, we will write to you and ask for your consent to proceed before we carry out any business for you. We will also let you know the steps we will take to make sure you are treated fairly.

We have a conflicts of interest policy. If you want to see a copy of the policy, please ask us.

Communicating with you

Our normal ways of communicating with you are by telephone, post, email or in person. Our communications will be in English.

We only accept instructions in writing (paper or electronic means) to aid clarification and avoid future misunderstandings. Please note we will not act on oral instructions to avoid any possible misunderstandings.

Client money

We are not permitted to handle client money and we cannot accept a cheque made out to us (unless it is in respect of a service for which we have sent you an invoice) or handle cash.

8. YOUR OBLIGATIONS

This section sets out your obligations in agreeing to receive our services.

Providing information about your circumstances

As our advice will be based on the information that you provide, it is important that you provide us with accurate and up to date information when we request details about your circumstances and objectives. This will allow us to provide you with suitable advice. If the information you provide is inaccurate or if you limit the information provided this could affect the suitability of the advice we give.

For protection planning, where you are buying insurance as an individual, this means that you must take ‘reasonable care’ to answer all questions asked by the insurer fully and accurately. Failure to disclose material information may invalidate your insurance cover and could mean that a claim may not be paid.

Payment for services

Once the services to be provided have been agreed, we will issue a fee agreement for sign off prior to commencing any work. Your selected payment method will also be confirmed in the fee agreement.

Our initial charges are payable once we have completed our agreed work and must be settled within twenty-eight days.

Where our charges are based on a percentage of your investments, the amount of our ongoing charges may increase as the size of your fund grows.

In some limited circumstances (for protection planning business) we may receive a commission payment from a product provider. Typically, the commission payment will be offset against the charges you owe us for our services. If the commission payment relates to a regular contribution policy and you stop paying premiums on that policy, we may be obliged to refund the commission received back to the policy provider. In such cases, we reserve the right to request the full payment of any outstanding balance of charges for our services.

Our ongoing services are optional and any products we have arranged for you will only be kept under review if agree to purchase the ongoing service. The ongoing service will be provided as a follow up to the initial service.

Where our charges are based on a percentage of your investments, the amount of our ongoing charges you pay will fluctuate with the value of your investment; if your investment increases in value, the amount you pay us will also increase and if your investment falls in value, the amount you pay us will also decrease.

In some circumstances we may receive ongoing payments (commission) from product providers relating to existing investments you hold. Such payments may be taken into account when determining the charges for ongoing services. We will discuss and agree this with you where relevant.  

Our ongoing services can be cancelled at any time by simply informing us in writing. Please note that we reserve the right to charge you for services provided prior to cancellation.

Legal and accounting advice

We are not qualified to provide legal or accounting advice or to prepare any legal or accounting documents. This means that the onus is on you to refer any point of law or accountancy that may arise during the course of discussions with us, to a solicitor or accountant.

9. CANCELLATION & AMENDMENTS

Termination of this agreement

You or we may terminate this agreement and our authority to act on your behalf at any time, without penalty. Notice of this termination must be given in writing and will take effect from the date of receipt.

Any transactions already initiated will be completed according to this agreement unless otherwise agreed in writing.

You will be liable to pay for any services provided prior to termination and any fees outstanding, if applicable.

Amendments

From time to time, it may be necessary to amend the terms set out in this agreement where it is not necessary to issue a new agreement. If this is the case, we will write to you with details of the changes at least twenty-eight business days before they are due to take effect.

Product cancellation rights

Full details of any financial products we recommend to you will be provided in the relevant product information you will receive. This will include information about any product cancellation rights along with any other early termination rights and penalties.

If you cancel a single premium contract, you may be required to pay for any loss you might reasonably incur in cancelling it which is caused by market movements. This means that, in certain circumstances, you might not get back the full amount you invested if you cancel the policy.

10. HOW YOU ARE PROTECTED

Antony Ransom Independent Financial Adviser Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Our firm reference number is 425959.

Our permitted business is advising on and arranging investments, pensions (including transfers) and non-investment insurance contracts.

You can check this on the Financial Services Register by visiting the FCA’s website www.fca.org.uk/firms/systems-reporting/register.

Unless we tell you otherwise, we will treat you as a retail client for investment business. This means that you are given the highest level of protection available under the UK’s regulatory system.

Complaints

If you are dissatisfied with a recommendation we have made you are entitled to make a complaint. We have a complaints procedure that is available on request.

If you wish to register a complaint, please contact us:

In writing:        Antony Ransom IFA Ltd, 113 Main Street, Burley-in-Wharfedale, Ilkley, West Yorkshire, LS29 7JN

By phone:         01943 850 222

By e-mail:         tony@ransomifa.co.uk

Please be assured we treat complaints seriously. A summary of our internal complaints handling procedures for the reasonable and prompt handling of complaints is available on request.

If you cannot settle your complaint with us, you may be entitled to refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service at www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk or by contacting them on 0800 023 4567.

Financial Services Compensation Scheme

If you make a complaint and we are unable to meet our liabilities, you may be entitled to compensation from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. For investment business you will be covered up to a maximum of £85,000.

Further information about these amounts and limits for all other product types are available from the FSCS at http://www.fscs.org.uk/what-we-cover/products

Law

This client agreement is governed and shall be construed in accordance with English Law and the parties shall submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts.

Force Majeure

Antony Ransom IFA Ltd shall not be in breach of this Agreement and shall not incur any liability to you if there is any failure to perform its duties due to any circumstances reasonably beyond its control.

Benefits we may receive

Under the rules of the FCA, as a firm providing independent advice, we are unable to accept or retain payments or benefits from other firms (e.g. product providers) as this would conflict with our independent status.

We may attend training events which are funded and/or delivered by product providers, fund managers and investment platforms. These events are designed to enhance our knowledge and enhance the quality of service we provide to our clients. As such this does not affect our obligation to act in your best interests. Please ask us if you require further details.

Summary

This is our standard client agreement upon which we intend to rely. For your own benefit and protection you should read these terms carefully. If you do not understand any point please ask for further information before proceeding.