New user here.

Our firm is looking at the merits of moving from Intelligent Office to Plannr and how it mainly compares.

Obviously Plannr seems to be much more intuitive and customisable, but just wondering how people have made the jump.

We currently produce portfolio reports in IO and one of the main considerations for us is being able to produce performance/transactions reports ahead of annual review meetings.

Thanks

J

I'm not familiar with cases like this where we are setting up a GIA for a corporate client - they are a trading business looking to invest excess cash, with Fair Value reporting.

The directors are also personal clients using a particular platform, but turns out the platform has a really clunky corporate GIA which uses manual concessions to set up and their reporting is the same as individual GIAs, which we don't want.

Can anyone tell me of any other platform GIAs which have dedicated corporate GIAs with proper reporting as I'm finding it hard to research one for some reason.

Many thanks
Wild

We are looking at using the P1 Platform for new business.

Can anyone provide any feedback on the good and bad things about the platform?

Much appreciated

I work as a paraplanner in the wealth planning division of a private bank and the team is due to grow considerably in the coming months so we are wanting to use a task management system to keep a log/track of all ongoing cases.

I am aware that most back office systems have this built-in but the issue we have is that we use an internally built CRM system for all client information and do not wish to port this to a new back office system.

Would anyone have used any task management systems that didn't require the full use of a back office software.

Any thoughts or comments on this would be greatly appreciated.

Most of our clients are invested in an MPS, but we still have a few in advised funds, that have historically included a small allocation to property funds. We have one client who wants to remain invested in property, but not within an open ended fund (eg L&G and Abrdn as used now). We are aware of Investment Trusts/REITs as alternatives, does anybody have any other suggestions?

The client is on the Quilter platform, so the holding would need to be available on there. We do not have access to FE Analytics, but do have Defaqto Engage and Morningstar Adviser Workstation. Does anyone have an idea of how we could research potential property options?

Many thanks

I've had a client ask about Purchased Life Annuities and I'm struggling to find providers. So far I've only seen that Canada Life and Aviva definitely seem to offer them. Does anyone know of any tools or a place I could get a list of providers?

Thanks

I know Canada Life used to be able to within their retirement account before withdrawing it from new business.

I think Just Retirement have one which links with 7IM.

Are there any others that I am missing?

Thanks

Has anyone met obstructions like this before? It seems to me like they are hell bent on not allowing the transfer to go ahead. Every time we meet their conditions, they throw something new into the mix.

"Thank you for your recent correspondence in relation to your request to transfer your benefits from Legal & General to the new SSAS.

As you are aware, owing to a change in pensions legislation aimed at preventing members from falling victims to scams, we must undertake certain due diligence to assess whether a transfer request can proceed.

We are required by law to check whether the proposed transfer meets one of two new statutory conditions.

The first condition is that the receiving scheme is a “low risk scheme” (i.e. a public service scheme, an authorised master trust or an authorised collective defined contribution pension scheme). Your request does not fall within this condition.

If the first condition is not met, we must consider your transfer request against the second condition. This involves considering whether certain red and amber flags as set out in legislation are present in respect of your requested transfer. The presence of these red and amber flags indicate a heightened risk of a pension scam.

Your transfer request did not meet the first condition, so we have assessed it against the second condition.

Following our due diligence checks, we have concluded that your transfer request raises amber flags. We have reviewed all documents and would like to draw to your attention the following concerns that we have:

• Investments – You have advised that the transferred funds will be invested in Commercial Property. These investments are unregulated and are considered high-risk investments, and as such raises an Amber Flag as laid out in the regulations.

We are unable to confirm your scheme is a low risk transfer under conditions 1 and 2 of the transfer regulations, as such you will need to contact Money and Pensions Advice Service to book a consultation.

By law, this means that your transfer cannot go ahead unless you attend a free Pension Safeguarding Guidance appointment from the government-backed organisation, MoneyHelper. As such you will need to contact MoneyHelper to book a consultation.

How advice from MoneyHelper differs from advice provided by an independent financial advisor

We recognise that you may have already obtained independent financial advice in respect of your transfer. Please note that the requirement to attend a Pension Safeguarding Guidance appointment with MoneyHelper is a separate, distinct, and additional requirement.

MoneyHelper is set up to give free, impartial guidance with the intention of helping individuals understand the risk of being scammed and avoiding making a transfer that leads to them losing some or all of their pension savings. This is different to the role of a financial adviser.

Next steps

If you wish to proceed with the transfer following your appointment with MoneyHelper, I have included a member declaration which you will need to complete with a wet (handwritten) signature and return along with the email you will receive from MoneyHelper once you have completed your consultation with them.

Once we have received the MaPS Declaration and MoneyHelper email from you we can proceed with the transfer. The Declaration serves as written confirmation that you are aware of our concerns and wish to proceed and the MoneyHelper email is evidence that the regulatory process has been followed and all steps are complete. We cannot proceed without both of these.

Contact Information:
Website: https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/pension-safeguarding

You can also book by calling 0800 015 4906 free or, if you’re overseas, by calling +4420 7932 5780

We cannot proceed with the transfer without evidence that you have contacted the Money and Pensions Advice Service.

If you are consolidating more than one pension, you may wish to wait until you have requested all transfers before booking your appointment. This will avoid you being asked to attend more than one safeguarding appointment.

We recommend that you seek advice from a financial adviser, authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority, with a view to transferring to a different arrangement. If you do not currently have a financial adviser you may find one at www.unbiased.co.uk.

If a scheme provides you with a lump sum or payment, other than to provide retirement benefits, then you will incur a tax liability of up to 55% on any payments that you receive. This is also the case if the scheme invests in assets that are not deemed to be permitted pension investments.

If you need more information or have any questions please contact us. For more details about Workplace Pensions please visit: www.legalandgeneral.com/workplacebenefits.

Has anyone had any experience using cash management providers like Insignis or Cascade? It would be useful to hear peoples experiences.

Thanks :-)

The trustee has asked her bank (TSB and Santander) but they don't offer trustee accounts.

Does anyone know have any experience of setting up a trustee bank account or know which banks offer these?

We did think of holding the cash on a platform alongside the trust's offshore bond (i.e. Transact) but they will only pay out to a beneficiary or a trustee bank account (not the personal bank account of a trustee).

As per the title, does anyone know if there are any onshore bonds in the market available to corporate investors?

Ideally not a platform. I thought it would be a filter on Defaqto but sadly not, so before I go picking up the phone to lots of providers, I thought I'd see if anyone here had an idea.

Cheers

Does anyone know of a way of researching offshore bond providers to see who has the best range of term deposits available via their offshore bond?

We currently use Transact but they only have Aldermore and Investec and we are looking for a wider range.

The latest booklet has a member AMC of 0.3%, if they invest in the default fund, and then fund fees shown separately. See below:

Does anyone know whether the member AMC of 0.3% includes the fund charge?

Any feedback would be great.

thanks

Andrew

Can I ask who your firms use for their compliance/technical support? We use Threesixty and their annual knowledge tests for everyone in the firm and their technical team for additional support. We have a different external company to check our files and provide compliance oversight.

I just wondered if there was an alternative to Threesixty?

Just trying to get a sense of views. A provider has told us that if you have a UK ISA as a student say studying in the USA, that you can 1) make new contributions as you are a student and return to the UK each year.

This to me would imply the student is regarded as UK tax resident, and hence the ISA is not taxed under the US worldwide income rules.

Any views on this by anyone is much appreciated.

Cheers

GC

We mainly use Canada Life and frankly their customer service has been atrocious e.g. withdrawals taking months to process, not stopping withdrawals, lack of ownership with queries, lost death certificates etc.

The issue we have is do we jump ship or would that just be a case of frying pan to fire!

Think I am having a bit of a brain freeze today, but key person insurance can't be searched through the likes of Assureweb can it? I know they can quote for some forms of business insurance but from memory key person you typically have to go and obtain the quotes from the provider? Adviser thinks they can so just want to check!

Have a fab day