We understand that you may have some queries, so we have answered some of the questions we often get asked below.
Golden Oak Wealth Management Limited are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The FCA regulates financial services in the UK. Our Financial Services Register number is 783726 and you can check our authorisation and permitted activities on the Financial Services Register by visiting the following link: https://register.fca.org.uk/s/firm?id=001b000003ruWYFAA2
As wholly independent financial advisers, we aim to provide holistic financial advice, across a wide range of services including investments, pensions, protection, tax, and estate planning. We are committed to putting our clients’ needs at the heart of everything we do, developing long-term relationships, and regularly reviewing their circumstances to ensure our advice remains suitable as their situations change.
Yes, we are an independent firm, and we are passionate about the importance of it. With being independent, we have access to financial products, providers and investments from across the whole of the marketplace. As a result, through our industry-wide research and screening, we can recommend the best solutions to our clients and provide a tailored financial plan for each of our client’s situations. It is vitally important to take advice from an independent firm that has your best interests at heart, rather than a ‘restricted’ or ‘tied’ firm that has links to specific providers or their own internal offering.
The importance of being independent firm is that we understand that we must select investment products based on a comprehensive, fair, and unbiased analysis of the market. This changes over time, as the industry does, so we regularly monitor this for our clients. Diversification, cost, and our regulatory permissions are all taken into account as part of this process.
Financial planning is simply creating a long-term, coherent financial strategy, and ensuring the efficient management of your financial affairs, to help you meet your lifetime financial and lifestyle goals and objectives.
It will involve looking at your current financial situation and your long-term monetary goals, and how implementing certain strategies can help to achieve those goals.
At Golden Oak Wealth Management, we believe that this revolves around 4 main ‘pillars’ – creating your financial plan and tax strategy, building your lifetime cashflow forecasts, investment management, and regularly monitoring your financial plan over time as your situation changes and evolves.
Chartered status is the gold standard in our industry, as recognised by the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investments (CISI) and the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII). It is only achieved through taking a series of exams which span across the whole realm of financial planning, and it is a commitment to ongoing professional development.
No, we do not charge for an initial fact-finding meeting, and we do not limit the amount of time offered for this meeting.
We are happy to devote the necessary time to explore your current financial situation, discover any financial goals or objectives you may have, and let you know how we can help you moving forward.
Our fees depend on the work involved, and these will be fully disclosed to you at our initial meeting.
We typically charge a one-off initial fee, which is capped, and this covers our work involved in researching, making your initial recommendations, and onboarding you as a new client. We also charge a fee which covers the ongoing advice and management of your investments, which is a set percentage per annum based on the value of the investments that we manage on your behalf.
If we recommend a protection product to you, the insurer pays us a percentage commission from the total premium.
This, along with additional terms and conditions, are set out in our ‘Client Agreement’ and ‘Service Proposition & Engagement’ documents which we provide to you at outset.
Put simply, anyone who is looking to create a better financial future could be a client of Golden Oak Wealth Management. You need to be openminded to understanding your current situation, your financial and lifestyle goals, and the long-term journey involved with financial planning.
We do not have a minimum portfolio size, although our ‘optimum’ client portfolio size is £250,000+.
With that being said, we do assess everyone on an individual basis, and we would be more than happy to discuss your current situation with you.
We do not tie our clients into long-term agreements. We want our clients to want to work with us and will not make life difficult for you should you wish to move on.
You are free to cancel any ongoing advice arrangement with us providing just 7 days’ notice.
We do not handle your money ourselves, but you are protected by any advice that we give under our Professional Indemnity Insurance, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), and the Financial Ombudsman.
With regards to the providers, products and funds that we recommend, we regularly review their financial strength and suitability, to ensure we are recommending the best possible solutions to our clients.
The ‘ScamSmart’ campaign, ran by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), seeks to help protect consumers from pension and investment fraud. The campaign features the FCA Warning List, which allows you to check a list of firms the FCA knows are operating without its authorisation.
The campaign also helps investors discover the common warning signs to look out for to avoid pension and investment scams.
For the benefit of our clients, there are times when we enlist third parties who have expertise in a specific area, or where Golden Oak Wealth Management has regulatory limitations. In the case of Defined Benefit Pension advice, Golden Oak Wealth Management offers a triage service, but we do not provide formal advice.
If advice is required, this will be referred to a specialist company who will provide an advice service at a cost that is disclosed at the start of the process, independently from Golden Oak Wealth Management. There is no charge by Golden Oak Wealth Management for this introduction, although if a transfer is proceeded with, the ongoing servicing would be taken over by Golden Oak Wealth Management.