FAQs

Yes, we are both proud of our independent status and committed to maintaining it.

As independent financial advisers, we can recommend all types of retail investment products and pension products from firms across the market without restriction.

Yes.

By their very nature, financial investments carry a degree of risk, and it’s our role to try and achieve a balance between this risk and reward. However, the risk of investing is not restricted to whether your investment performs as well as expected.

It is natural to ask what would happen if a business that you are dealing with goes bust. In addition, there are the risks of fraud, negligence and bad advice.

In the UK, all operators in the Financial Services sector should be governed by the rules set out and monitored by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). They are subject to the authority of the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) which investigates complaints, and they should be members of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), which protects an investor’s money up to guaranteed limits.

One of the key principles of consumer protection in financial services is that the rules and guarantees are the same for everyone, regardless of the size of the institution of investor.

Your money will be invested in a third-party institution. The money is then invested in selected retail investment products, such as ISAs, shares, personal portfolios and pensions, and unit trusts etc. Any funds that are held in cash are held in designated client accounts in accordance with FCA and Prudential Regulation Authority rules.

At every stage, the financial planner, investment host, fund manager, registrar for investment products – is regulated by the same rules of conduct policed by the FCA.

Those rules dictate that investment assets are separate from any business that handles or manages the investment’s own assets.

MGT Financial Planning Ltd holds no client money. Any investment portfolios we recommend are held with third-party providers and as such, the security of your finances is not directly impacted by the solvency of our business.

The third-party providers we choose to recommend have been chosen in part because of their financial strength and prudent management. While we cannot guarantee the financial security of these institutions, you have the added protection of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which protects your money up to guaranteed limits in the event of an insolvency.

If you would like more information on the financial security of a particular investment that you hold then please do get in touch.

Yes. Responsible investing is a fast-growing sector and we have witnessed a dramatic evolution in the range of responsible solutions available in recent years. Whether you are looking for a Green, Ethical or Environmental and Socially Responsible solution, we are able to tailor a solution to meet your needs while ensuring your portfolio is appropriately diversified and you take an appropriate level of risk.

We are fully set up to provide remote advice where required and we find that more and more clients are opting to do so. We have invested in technology that makes the remote advice process simple and efficient. We can hold video conferencing via Microsoft Teams or Zoom and we have state-of-the-art technology available to facilitate secure electronic signatures and file sharing.

We generally meet clients remotely via Microsoft Teams or Zoom for an initial meeting. If you subsequently become a client, depending on the service level selected, we can continue to meet remotely or if you prefer, we can meet in person at your home, your place of work or at offices in South Manchester.

We approach financial planning by starting with the plan. Too many advisers focus on the solution first. Until we know where you need to get to, we cannot tell you what you need to do to get there.

Therefore, we agree an achievable financial plan at the outset. We will have an honest discussion about what is and is not achievable, and we will subject the agreed plan to a series of tests to determine likely outcomes if things don’t pan out as you expect or if market conditions are less favourable.

This service is built into our proposition, so unlike many firms, we will not charge you additional fees for this service providing you have signed up to one of our two ongoing service propositions.

The majority of the portfolios that we manage benefit from “daily liquidity”. This means that on any working day, we can instruct a sale on your behalf. Unlike some of our competitors, we charge no exit charges or penalties, if you choose to withdraw some or all of your money.

The sale process can take some time as the sales need to clear and the funds may need to be transferred between accounts before they are sent to your nominated bank account. We therefore ask clients to expect this process to take up to two weeks, although in practice, it is often quicker.

Not at our current office, but there is plenty of parking nearby.

No. We want to take the time to get to know you, to determine whether we can help you and whether you are a good fit for our business. We feel it would be unfair to charge you for doing so, we cover the cost of this process.

Our commitment – you will never receive a bill from us that you are not expecting.

Ideally, you should bring the following documents to your initial meeting:

• Passport
• Driving Licence
• Details of any plans that you need to review

Additional information which is helpful but not essential for an initial meeting includes:

• Last P60
• State Pension forecast
• A breakdown of net monthly income and gross annual income
• Approximate annual expenditure

An initial meeting typically lasts an hour.

Absolutely not. The purpose of the initial meeting is to get to know each other and to establish if we are a good fit. There is no obligation to take things further if this is not the case.

We recommend you call us to talk through your requirements before booking a meeting. This way, we can be sure that we are able to help meet your needs.

Although qualified to do so, we chose not to provide advice on final salary/defined benefit transfers as this is a highly complex area of advice, which poses specific potential risks to both you and our firm. However, for these clients that may require advice in this area, we refer this work to a trusted firm that is a market leader in this field.