How We Are Paid
What are your payment options?
Not all firms charge for advice in the same way. 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.
Paying by commission (or product charges).
If you buy a financial product, we will normally receive commission on the sale from the product provider. Although you pay nothing up front, that does not mean our service is free. You still pay us indirectly through product charges. Product charges pay for the product provider´s own costs and any commission. These charges reduce the amount left for investment. If you buy direct, the product charges could be the same as when buying through an adviser, or they could be higher or lower. We will tell you how much the commission will be before you complete an investment, but you may ask for this information earlier.
Paying by fee.
If you choose this option, whether you buy a product or not, you will pay us a fee for our advice and services. If we also receive commission from the product provider when you buy a product, we will pass on the full value of that commission to you in one or more ways. For example, we could reduce our fee; or reduce your product charges; or increase your investment amount; or refund the commission to you.
In the case of mortgages, should you choose to pay a fee we will usually charge 0.4% of the loan amount, subject to a minimum fee of £500 i.e. for a loan of £150,000 we would charge a fee of £600.
Paying by a combination of commission and fee.
In some circumstances, we also charge a fee on top of any commission we might receive or we will offset any commission we might receive against any fee payable.