FAQs

Anyone, regardless of their current financial situation, can benefit from using a financial planning service. Whether you’re just starting your career, preparing for retirement, saving for a specific goal, such as buying a house or sending your children to university, or looking to optimise your investments, a financial planning service can provide personalised guidance and strategies tailored to your unique needs.

Sharing information with your financial planner allows them to get a better understanding of you and your goals. For example, if you went to see your doctor with a symptom, you’re unlikely to get the best diagnosis and treatment unless you tell them about your medical history. To create a tailored financial plan, you will typically need to provide your financial planner with details such as your current income, expenses, savings, investments, debts, insurance policies, and retirement provisions. Additionally, information about your short-term and long-term financial goals, risk tolerance, and any specific financial challenges you’re facing will be essential for the planner to customise their recommendations to your unique situation.

There is no “one size fits all” in financial planning. If investing makes up part of your portfolio, then the level of risk will be decided based on a variety of factors. There are various risks to consider when it comes to investment that will be considered as part of the full picture. We will never push you to accept risk that you aren’t comfortable with or that you don’t need to take.

Reviewing your plan at least annually is important to keep your financial plan on track. Over time, aspects of your situation will change in terms of your personal circumstances (marriage, divorce, dependants), assets, income, expenditure and/or liabilities. Furthermore, the economic, market and policy landscapes are ever-changing. Your financial plan isn’t static; it is a dynamic tool that evolves with you. Regular reviews ensure that your plan is robust, relevant and aligned with your goals.

Nobody can predict the future with certainty, so if you find someone who claims they can, ask them for it in writing! However, financial planning is truly powerful, as it has the ability to simulate various scenarios, taking into account potential challenges such as a stock market crash, a spell of unemployment, unexpected expenses such as your car breaking down, or the financial impact on your partner if you were to die if they are financially dependent on you. This allows us to gain an insight into your financial health and identify areas of improvement.

During a financial planning consultation, a qualified financial planner will gather information about your financial goals, current financial situation, risk tolerance, and time horizon. They will analyse this data to create a comprehensive financial plan that includes recommendations on budgeting, saving, investing, tax planning, and retirement planning. Lastly, the planner will also address any financial concerns or questions you may have.

We are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), 12 Endeavour Square, London, E20 1JN. www.fca.org.uk. Our firm reference number is 531465.

Our permitted business is advising on and arranging pensions, savings and investment products, non-investment insurance contracts, and mortgages.

You can check our details on the Financial Services Register by visiting the FCA’s website or by contacting the FCA on 0800 111 6768.

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.

If you are unhappy with our advice or any aspect of our services, we encourage you to contact us as soon as possible. We will do our best to resolve your concerns.

Telephone: 01244 660793
Email: infochester@astutepwltd.co.uk
In writing: Complaints Officer, Astute Private Wealth Ltd, 2nd Floor, Vista Building, St. David’s Park, Ewloe, Flintshire CH5 3DT

We have a complaints procedure, and can provide further details on request. If you do have a complaint, and you are not happy with our response, the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) may be able to help. The FOS settles disputes between financial services businesses and their clients. Full details are available at www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk.

The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) is the UK’s statutory compensation fund for customers of authorised financial services firms who are unable to pay claims against them, usually because they have gone out of business.

You may be able to claim compensation from the FSCS if we can’t meet our obligations. The amount of compensation available will depend on the type of business and the circumstances of the claim. We can provide more specific information on request, but as a guide:

Investments – eligible claims for most types of investment business are covered for up to a maximum of £85,000.
Insurance – in the majority of cases, eligible claims about the advising and arranging of protection products are covered for 90% of the claim, without any upper limit. Further information is available from the FSCS at www.fscs.org.uk.

We collect information about you whenever you engage us for financial planning or mortgage advice. This information will relate to your personal and financial circumstances. It may also include special categories of personal data, such as data about your health, if this is necessary for the provision of our services.

We may also collect information when you voluntarily complete client surveys or provide feedback to us.

Information relating to usage of our website is collected using cookies. These are text files placed on your computer to collect standard internet log information and visitor behaviour information. We’ll use your information collected from the website to personalise your repeat visits to the site.

We may also need to gather personal information about your close family members and dependants in order to provide our service to you effectively. In such cases, it will be your responsibility to ensure you have the consent of the people concerned to pass their information on to us. We’ll make available a copy of this privacy notice for them or, where appropriate, ask you to pass the privacy information to them.

The primary legal basis that we intend to use for the processing of your data is for the performance of our contract with you. The information that we collect about you is essential for us to be able to carry out the services that you require from us effectively. Without collecting your personal data, we’d also be unable to fulfil our legal and regulatory obligations.

Where special category data is required, we’ll obtain your explicit consent in order to collect and process this information.

We collect information about you to provide you with the services for which you engage us.

If you agree, we may email you about other products or services that we think may be of interest to you.

We won’t share your information for marketing purposes with companies outside our group of companies/other companies.

So that we can deliver our services to you effectively, we may send your details to third parties. These include those that we engage for professional compliance, accountancy, or legal services, as well as product and platform providers that we use to arrange financial products for you.

Where third parties are involved in processing your data, we’ll have a contract in place with them to ensure the nature and purpose of the processing is clear, that they are subject to a duty of confidence in processing your data, and that they’ll only act in accordance with our written instructions.

Where it’s necessary for your personal data to be forwarded to a third party, we’ll use appropriate security measures to protect your personal data in transit, such as password protection, encryption, etc.

To fulfil our obligations in respect of prevention of money-laundering and other financial crime, we may send your details to third-party agencies for identity verification purposes.

In principle, your personal data shouldn’t be held for longer than is required under the terms of our contract for services with you. However, we’re subject to regulatory requirements to retain data for specified minimum periods.

During the course of our relationship with you, we’ll retain personal data which is necessary to provide services to you. We’ll take all reasonable steps to keep your personal data up to date throughout our relationship.

We’re also subject to regulatory requirements to retain your data at the end of the relationship, for specified minimum periods. These are, generally:

• Five years for investment business
• Three years for mortgage business
• Indefinitely for pension transfers and opt-out business
• Three years for insurance business

These are minimum periods, during which we have a legal obligation to retain your records.
We also reserve the right to retain data for longer than this, due to the possibility that it may be required to defend a future claim against us.

You have the right to request deletion of your personal data. We’ll comply with this request, subject to the restrictions of our regulatory obligations and legitimate interests as noted above.

You have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you. If you’d like a copy of some or all of your personal information, please email or write to us using the contact details noted on this page.

When your personal data is processed by automated means, you have the right to ask us to move your personal data to another organisation for their use.

We have an obligation to ensure your personal information is accurate and up to date. Please ask us to correct or remove any information that you think is incorrect.

You also have a right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority for data protection. In the UK, this is:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
0303 123 1113 (local rate)