Last Updated on 13, May 2014
Financial Planning requires high level of competency and knowledge. To provide good advice, it is important that the financial planner is familiar in the area he is advising. Thus, I focus on certain ‘target groups’ categorized into the following:
- Residency
- Age
- Language
- Scope of work and profile of client
- Length of work
- Networth of client
- Cash flow of client
- Minimum investment amount
- Complexity of the case
- Level of organization
- Family participation and
- Communications
In terms of clients’ residency, I prefer to work in cases which the clients are Singapore citizens or Permanent Residents. For PRs, they should not be tax resident of the United States of America.
Clients’ age: The minimum age is 21 years old. This is the common-law requirement for any individual to enter into contract. Financial planning service is a contractual service. I do not accept cases from those with questionable mental capacity to enter into contract.
I prefer to work with clients who speak and understand verbal and written English.
The scope of services that I provide are: Cash flow, budgeting, credit management, retirement planning, investments planning, children’s education planning, insurance planning and Estate Planning. Estate planning is only offered to non-Muslims and those domicile in commonwealth countries.
The following are profiles of my clients in order of the number of cases (the first profile is the most common profile):
- Comprehensive Financial Planning for families with young children.
- Basic financial planning for new graduates who will be getting married in few years.
- Comprehensive Financial Planning for singles
- Retirement Planning for those who would be retiring in less than 5 years.
- Estate Planning for Special Needs Persons.
Length of work: I prefer to work with clients for the long-term rather than one-off. Since most financial objectives cannot be achieved overnight, a ‘long-term’ professional relationship means the opportunity to help them meet their financial objectives which consists of regular meetings and reviews. That is why I generally do not accept one-time transaction such generating quotations and selling an insurance product or writing a will without any opportunity for a long-term professional relationship.
Net worth of the clients: I do not impose any requirement on net worth. However, those who are financially challenged are required to get a sponsor. I will bill my fees to the sponsor.
Cash flow of clients: If they are working personnel, their cash flow should be positive before they engage me unless the main objective of the work is to help them achieve positive cash flow. For such a case, they will be required to get a sponsor and I will bill my fees to the sponsor. Negative cash flow due to transitory reasons (such as change of career) is not an issue.
Minimum investment: I do not impose any minimum investment. However, there are product and platform minimums which are not within my control.
Complexity of cases: There are times which the scope of work is so difficult that I will not accept it. I do not accept cases which I foresee the work to exceed 30 hours. Examples of complex cases I have accepted and done are: Divorcees, special needs (down syndrome, autism etc), lesbian, debt restructuring for ex-gamblers, asset protection for business owners, etc.
Level of organization: I do not accept cases which the client is too disorganized. Clients must be well organized and know where they keep their ‘stuff’.
Family participation: For married personnel, both husband and wife should participate in the entire financial planning process. If there are personal reasons why this is not possible, I will still accept the case on a case-by-case basis.
Communications: Clients should generally be familiar with commonly used technology such as SMS, Email, Whatsapp and Internet Banking. I expect clients to read their emails regularly as I sent important communications through email. Those who are electronically challenged may find difficulty engaging my services because there are increasingly more and more financial planning related transactions that are done electronically.
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