Neglected Investment Accounts
I have been particularly interested in taking over neglected accounts. There are a few reasons for this. From the client’s perspective, it is quite difficult to get good advise and service. Additionally, taking over neglected accounts means additional value to the client at no cost to them.
Bank customers buy thousands of dollars of investment products from Personal Bankers (who may or may not be well-versed in investments. They are trained on a sales pitch and try too get the sale). Customers are charged 5% upfront fees. However, once fees are collected, expect no advise. It is not the bank’s nor the banker’s responsibility to monitor the investments or advise customers. There is no procedures set up for that and personal bankers’ job scope is getting new sales. Basically, customers will hear nothing except receiving a thick prospectus every year. They will however hear from the bankers again when they call to ask for more investments or to ‘advise’you to sell your current funds and buy into a new one, thereby incurring another 5% fees.
Customers of advisory/insurance firms pay annual advisory and service fee of between 0.8% to 1.25% of portfolio value. However, in many cases the clients do not get any advise or updates promised and still paying for. Some customers have not heard from the agent/adviser in years!
There is a recent client, whose first adviser, Adviser A, left and was taken over by Adviser B. The last time he heard anything about his $100,000 cash investment was in Oct 2007. Throughout the whole financial crisis and rebound, the client was neglected. Now, his account is passed to adviser C. It is true that $100,000 is not massive and on the client side, he is too relaxed on his own situation and allowed the charges to be deducted for nothing. However, I still feel that it is unethical.
My service standards are:
* monitoring of your portfolio and frequent market updates
* personalised quarterly written update and analysis of your portfolios (in addition to market reports and outlooks)
* written Investment Policy Statement for portfolios above $250,000
* refer to
I believe that my standards are high and I urge you to demand high standard of advise and service if you have tens of thousands in investments. You can continue paying the fees for nothing to the salesperson. If you want your investment portfolio to have a chance to achieve the objective you want, you need professional and expert advise for your investment portfolio.
I will love the chance to meet up anyone for a mutual discussion and assessment. There is no need to cough out additional money for investment and charges! Neglected accounts are already paying fees but getting nothing in return! If you wish to start an investment, I will have the same high standards. Please contact me if the above interest you.
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