A Decent Firm of Onshore IFA's

[chiang mai]

A couple of years ago the Independent Financial Advisor (IFA) market in the UK pretty much stopped offering financial advice to expats who are not UK resident and who live outside of the EU, those of us living in Thailand were especially excluded from UK based investments and advice via onshore IFA's. I contacted over thirty IFA's in an attempt to get them to act for me but was met with a series of excuses, typically starting with, "we'll have to refer your request to our Compliance Officer to see if we can help you". Eventually the answer would come back with further excuses which always resulted in no, we can't help you.

Initially I thought this was down to rule changes by the FCA or similar so I wrote to a Director of the FCA to raise the issue, Chris Woollard was very helpful and allocated staff to look at the problem, specifically to understand whether FCA rules prohibited IFA's for acting for us - they don't.

As a next step I write to Baroness Altman, the Pensions Minister and she was most helpful, she reckoned the issue was down to indemnity insurance which in part it is, the majority reason however is that IFA's are scared of the money laundering rules and many of the firms are simply too lazy to bother. Eventually Lady Altma wrote back formally and suggested I keep trying because there are no rules or laws that prevent onshore IFA's from acting for non-resident UK expats living in Thailand. Subsequently I received a pointer from her offices to contact one particular firm in London that will accept my business so I made contact and had a chat.

They offer IFA services to expats as well as onshore residents and they don't mind if you live in Thailand. All advice is regulated under ONSHORE UK FCA rules hence the level of protection is far higher than it would from a visiting IFA who does business here or who has offices in say Hong Kong or Singapore (who aren't licensed to do business here and whose products are not regulated in Thailand).

Their fees are 2.6% of the amount invested and an on cost of 1% per annum hence competitive with onshore UK charges. It's worth noting that they are also happy to communicate with clients via email, video conference and telephone hence no need for a face to face meeting.

If anyone who is not UK resident and is looking for an onshore UK IFA for investment purposes, Alexander House Financial Services in SE1 in London is a large firm of IFA's who appears on the DWP list of recommended advisors and they will be happy to do business with you.

Inevitably this post will spawn discussions about how people should make their own investments and the how high the charges are etc.but not everyone, including me, is comfortable doing that. I therefore offer up this contact for those that want to go a professionally managed route. I hope somebody out there finds this useful.

[GuestHouse]

A good informative post.

[topt]

A good informative post.

If the OP is able/allowed to add a web site link or phone number it could make a lot of sense to have it pinned?

[chiang mai]

Here you go, I didn't post the link before because I didn't want to be seen to be advertising or promoting the firm. And before anyone goes there, I have no association with the firm whatsoever and all the usual caveats apply of buyer beware etc., each person must do their own due diligence although I have checked them out against the DWP and FCA registers and they appear clean:

Edit: Link has been removed for no other reason than it's against Forum Rules, if any member would like to know the name of the company I'm sure the OP would be happy to pass it on via PM.

Edited May 31, 2016 by theoldgit