Client Agreement
The Financial Conduct Authority
The Financial Conduct Authority is the independent watchdog that regulates financial services. It requires us to give you this document. You need to read this important document which explains the service you are being offered and how you will pay for it. Use the information to decide if our services are right for you. The provisions of this Client Agreement will take effect immediately they are provided to you, and will continue in force until they are cancelled by you or us, or they are replaced by an updated Client Agreement.
Our Status
We are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority as Independent Financial Advisers. Our permitted business is advising and arranging investments, pension transfers and insurance. We are listed on the Financial Services Register and our registration number is 114664.
Our Relationship
We are obliged by the Financial Conduct Authority to classify our relationship with you. We classify all our clients as Retail Clients unless otherwise notified. In these circumstances, we would notify you in writing and obtain your agreement.
Your Investment Objectives
Where we provide you with advice, your investment objectives will be set out and summarised within a personalised suitability report which will be issued to you as a result of your personal consultation with us to document and explain the recommendations we have made.
Your Insurance Objectives
We will advise and make a recommendation for you after we have assessed your needs for Term Assurance, Critical Illness Insurance, Private Medical Insurance, Permanent Health Insurance, Accident, Sickness and Unemployment Insurance.
Our Services
We will provide unbiased and unrestricted financial planning advice on Life Assurance, Pensions and Investments and carry out any instructions you give us to effect such contracts. In order to meet your investment objectives our recommendations will be based on a comprehensive and fair analysis of the relevant market
The address at which we are established and from where we will provide our services to you is shown at the foot of this Client Agreement.
Our Remuneration
Investment
You will have the option to pay for our services on the basis of fee, a charge deducted from the investment or a combination of both. We will discuss your payment options with you and answer any questions you have. We will not charge you anything until you have agreed how we are to be paid.
Our fees are based on the four key service areas of our client proposition:
- Discovery & Review - to include contacting your existing product providers and obtaining information to provide you with a summary of your current financial position
- Report & Recommendations - evaluate your current financial position and identify any shortfall, provide a written report with our findings and recommendations
- Implementation - working with product providers to arrange contracts and transactions
- On-going service - review of your plans & circumstances
Pure Protection only
You will have the option to pay for our services on the basis of fee or a commission payable from the contract or a combination of both. We will discuss your payment options with you and will not charge you anything until you have agreed how we are to be paid.
Payment for on-going services
It is important for your investments to be reviewed on a regular basis so you can be satisfied that they continue to meet your objectives and that the funds you are invested in remain appropriate to your attitude to investment risk. In accordance with the level of service agreed with you and as described in our Client Value Proposition, we will contact you periodically to agree when a review should take place; alternatively you may contact us and request a review.
Communicating with You
When communicating with you, unless otherwise agreed, the acceptable methods of communication will include, letter, email or telephone. We may, at our discretion and unless we hear from you to the contrary, telephone you from time to time between the hours of 9am to 9pm without your prior consent to such contact for the purposes of discussing your investments and making any recommendations.
Conflict of Interests
We offer independent financial advice, but occasions can arise where we, or one of our other clients, will have some form of interest in the business that we are transacting for you. If this happens, or we become aware that our interests conflict with your interests, we will inform you in writing and ask for your consent before we carry out your instructions. Further details of our Conflict of Interest Policy are available upon request.
Risk Factors
We will notify you separately of any specific risk factors that apply to the service we provide for you. You should be aware that past performance of investments is no indicator of future performance.
Instructions
We require our clients to give us instructions in writing. We will accept oral instructions at our discretion, which must be confirmed in writing. We can refuse your instructions at our discretion.
All investments will be registered in your name unless otherwise agreed in writing. Unless you instruct us in writing to the contrary, we will forward to you all contract notes and documents showing ownership of your investments as soon as practicable after we receive them. Where a number of contract notes and documents of title are involved we will await arrival of all of them before sending them to you, which will be no later than 28 days after receipt of the first contract note.
Money Laundering
Where we are required to verify your identity in accordance with regulatory and statutory requirements, no investment will be made until such verification has been obtained. We may use third party online verification in order to assist this process and by signing this document you consent to us using this method. However, if the required verification is not forthcoming within a reasonable period we will not arrange any investment for you.
Your Money
For your additional security we have chosen not to be authorised to handle client money. We cannot accept any cheques payable to ourselves or cash; the only exception is fees, as described above.
Data Protection
The information you may provide us with is subject to the Data Protection Act 1998 (the “Act”). Personal information provided may be maintained on computer records and will not be disclosed to other parties except other businesses within the same group, representatives of our compliance advisers, our auditors, and any organisation requiring access to such information for regulatory purposes only, or any person having a legal entitlement to access. By signing this document you consent to us or any company associated with us for processing, both manually and by electronic means your personal data for the purposes of providing advice, administration, and management. If at any time you wish us, or any company associated with us, to cease processing your personal data or sensitive personal data, or contacting you for marketing purposes, please contact your financial adviser at the address at the foot of this Client Agreement.
Subject to certain exceptions, you are entitled to have access to your personal and sensitive personal data held by us. You may be charged a fee (subject to the statutory maximum) for supplying you with such data.
Future Changes
In accepting this Client Agreement, you agree that we may change the future content without receiving your prior consent to do so, but we will not conduct any investment business for you following any change unless we have given you at least 10 business days notice, unless it is impractical to do so.
Termination
The authority to act on your behalf may be terminated at any time without penalty by either party giving seven days notice in writing to that effect to the other, but without prejudice to the completion of transactions already initiated. Any transactions effected before termination and a due proportion of any charges for services shall be settled to that date.
Quality of Service
If you have any complaint about the advice you receive or a product that you have taken out through us please contact the Compliance Oversight Officer, IFG Group, Trinity House, Anderson Road, Swavesey, Cambridge, CB24 4UQ. If, after we have reviewed your complaint, you remain dissatisfied, you may have the right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Copies of our complaints procedures are available on request.
Compensation
If you make a valid claim against us in respect of the investments we arrange for you, and we are unable to meet our liabilities in full, you may be entitled to redress from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. This depends on the type of business and the circumstances of the claim. Most types of investment business are covered for 100% of the first £50,000 which is the maximum compensation payment. Insurance advising and arranging is covered for 90% of the claim with no upper limit. Deposit accounts are covered for 100% of the first £85,000 which is the maximum compensation payment. Further information about compensation arrangements is available from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme www.fscs.org.uk
Law and Limitations on our Liability
English law will be the basis of this contract, and the language in which this contract will be interpreted, and in which all communications will be conducted, will be English. The Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 shall not apply to this Client Agreement.
IFG Financial Services
Trinity House
Anderson Road
Swavesey
Cambridgeshire
CB24 4UQ