Worldwide Financial Planning

The busiest week of earnings season has been an up-and-down, or rather a down-then-up, one for global equity markets.

One of the most glaring points was that made by the Financial Ombudsman Service who state, regarding with-profits in a section on their website titled ‘with-profits bonds’, that a “with-profits bond may not have been a suitable recommendation for a consumer who needed access to their capital at a fixed point in the future” – a pretty powerful statement which I fully comprehend given the complete lack of nakedness of this arrangement.

A with profits fund is simply where your capital is invested across a wide range of assets like cash, UK and International equities, property, government and corporate bonds (exactly like a managed fund does). The objective is to spread your risk.

Equity release plans allow you to borrow against your home (you’ll see I avoided the word release) either by a lump sum or as a regular income.

This week the fickle nature of economic forecasting was at the fore, with just a handful of words from Mark Carney enough to cloud crystal balls over the country.

Amazingly, BOMAD is now the 9th biggest mortgage lender in the UK and helps fund 26% of all UK proper transactions. It is no surprise that over 60% of those under 35 seek help from friends and family to help get on that property ladder.