There is little doubt that the Banking sector has had a pretty rough time of things in the last few years.
Not only is that sector seen as one of the prime cause of the worldwide ‘credit crunch’ but it has been knocked back by wave after wave of mis-selling scandals.
Some of those scandals have been of a technical nature; difficult for the average person to grasp but damaging all the same.
In recent weeks (and we have commented about this here on our site) the FSA has criticised the Banks heavily for their retail operations in particular around investment advice to the customer.
Our argument is that this is less about advice and more about the selling of financial products which is pretty much the same thing in the banking sector.
Fewer and fewer High Street Banks are able to offer proper advice about financial planning and so the consumer has to find other sources.
Of course there is always the Internet which is both a source of great information but also great dis-information and usually provides guidance rather than advice.
But speaking with a competent professional adviser must surely be the best thing to do.
And the key word here is professional. Not only do you need to find someone you can trust, someone with integrity and who behaves honestly, but you also need to find someone with experience and knowledge.
Experience of course is a combination of duration (time spent) and exposure to the problems and challenges of real people. Knowledge we believe needs to be tested and for us the epitome of that test is Chartered status.
There is a minimum entry level qualification for financial advisers in the Uk but Chartered status exceeds that by a very long way indeed.
So if you need financial advice ask a friend, work colleague or relative to suggest someone to you but our advice (obviously) would be to select the adviser with Chartered status, seek out a Chartered Financial Planner the gold standard for advice.
