For my first blog, I would like to turn on the light, providing a short education on the services provided by wealth managers.

The financial services world is inhabited by a myriad of advisers promising their skills will deliver on a par with Aladdin’s lamp. The conversation is full of jargon and language designed to confuse and make it sound and feel like what we do is extremely complex.

I believe the misconception that financial services are very complex is one of the main reasons individuals refrain from investing and are worse off for it. Our role as financial services professionals is to educate primarily, so those we are connected with understanding and feel more comfortable about investing for their future.

This blog aims to provide a brief education on the types of “wealth manager” you may meet. This is a good starting point for understanding who you should start your wealth creation journey with.

Typically, there are 3 types of service you will come across:

1. A private banker
2. A financial planner
3. An investment manager

These services tend to be called wealth managers and are assumed to do the same thing, but just dealing with different levels of money. The reality is they are completely different.

Below is a bullet-point summary of the difference between these 3 services:

Most individuals who already invest will normally only use one of these service levels. In my opinion, however, by only using one of the above service levels you are not receiving the best level of service.

At King Street Wealth Management we don’t provide banking services, but we have combined both the financial planning and investment management services to make a more joined-up approach. In doing this we believe we are providing a better service (both the financial planning and the investment management). By doing this we are also saving you money in fees, which can be up to 3% per year. By reinvesting these savings back into your portfolio, over time this creates better results.

So in summary, by combining the services you can achieve a better service, better returns, at less cost.

My parting advice would be, before starting on your wealth creation journey, make a plan and don’t let someone “sell” you a return. Make your plan because what you really need to know is can you do all the things you want to do with your life and never run out of money. The investments are there to simply back up your plan.

My next blog will be on what your financial planner should be doing for you and the questions you should be asking yourself when working with your advisor to create your plan.

Hopefully the above provides clarity around the differences between the services provided within the wealth management world, but please feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Thank you for reading,

Mark Parello
Managing Director & Chartered Wealth Manager
mark@daintreewm.com