One of the main advantages of employing the services of an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA) is our ability to understand how the various aspects of financial planning overlap. This is then used to formulate a plan considering all of your objectives as opposed to just focusing on individual areas. For example your mortgage arrangements can often overlap with your retirement plans. What should you do with any extra cash you receive from your pension? Is it best to pay off part or all of your mortgage or invest the money for capital growth?

The answer is an individual one and would be different for each person, depending on many factors such as your individual Risk Profile, amongst other things. But what exactly does that mean? Risk means 10 different things to 10 different people so it’s the adviser’s job to put this into context for you.

“Treating customers fairly” is a core principal in the way we interact with all our clients.
Further information is available on the website of our regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority.

Deciding how best to invest your money can be daunting. With so many options available and so many uncertainties, how do you choose what’s right for you?. Our job is to eliminate as much of that uncertainly as possible and to work with you to identify the most appropriate way for you to achieve your financial goals. The Bury Financial Advisers Ltd Investment Process is designed with that in mind. It creates a framework for us to discuss your needs and expectations, to assess and agree your attitude to risk and then to build and manage an investment portfolio to match.

Many advisers in the industry do not have an investment process in place and instead advise on an ad-hoc basis. The lack of process means that two people with exactly the same investment needs and same attitude to risk may receive different advice with regard to asset allocation and stock selection. Utilising the very best analytical tools in the marketplace, we have developed a robust investment process that is both quantifiable and continuous. Every three months, we update our Asset Allocation splits and screen all the funds available in the UK – after rigorous filtering, we then select the strongest funds in each sector and use these as the basis for our stock selection. However, equally as important is ensuring that you use the most suitable tax wrappers (e.g .ISA, Pension or Investment Bond) so your money is managed in the most tax-efficient way.

Contributions to a pension attract all manner of tax-efficient benefits including the following:

• Your contributions attract tax relief at the highest rate you pay (20% or 40%). The 20% even applies to non-taxpayers.
• Investment returns are free of income and capital gains tax (apart from the 10% tax credit on shares which is not reclaimable).
• Having some of your estate in a pension fund can provide a means of efficient Inheritance Tax (IHT) planning if you have a large estate.
• At retirement, 25% of your pension fund is available as a tax-free lump sum, sometimes known as Tax-Free Cash (TFC).
• The rest of your fund can remain invested (Unsecured Pension) or you can use it to purchase an lifetime annuity, which is a guaranteed level of income for life (which could increase in line with inflation).