TERMS of business

William James Financial Services Ltd’s permitted business is advising on and arranging pensions, savings, investment products and non-investment insurance contracts. You can check this on the FCA’s Register by visiting the FCA’s website www.fca.org.uk/register or by contacting the FCA, 12 Endeavour Square, London E20 1JN on 0800 111 6768.

We offer you an initial discussion (at our expense) at which we will describe our services more fully and explain the payment options. If you decide to go ahead, we will:

  • Gather and analyse personal financial information about you and your needs and objectives

  • Recommend and discuss any action we think you should take and, with your agreement, arrange relevant solutions for you.

Our services

We offer products and services as follows:

  • Investments: we provide an independent advice service. We will make a recommendation for you after we have assessed your needs. All our recommendations are based on a comprehensive and fair analysis of the market

  • Non-investment protection contracts: we advise on non-investment protection products, for example term assurance, income protection and critical illness, from a range of insurers.

Your aims and objectives

Any advice or recommendation that we offer to you will only be given after we have assessed your needs and considered your financial objectives and attitude to any risks that may be involved. We will also take into account any restrictions that you wish to place on the type of products you would be willing to consider.

Unless we notify you in writing to the contrary, we will be treating you as a ‘retail client’. This means that you are afforded the highest level of protection under the regulatory system and should have the right to take any complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).

We will confirm to you in writing the basis of our recommendation along with details of any special risks associated with the products recommended.

Full details of the products we recommend to you including, for example, the minimum duration of the product, information on your right to cancel or whether no right to cancel exists and any other early termination rights and penalties, will be covered in the relevant product disclosure information you will receive before the conclusion of any contract.

We will issue any documentation/recommendation and any other communication to you in English (unless agreed otherwise).

In executing or transmitting applications on your behalf to third parties, we will take all reasonable steps to ensure that we obtain the best possible result for you. This is referred to as ‘best execution’.

We may also, on occasion, advise on other financial products which are not regulated by the FCA under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) does not apply to any of these products.

Under the terms of this agreement we may, if appropriate, advise you on investments which are not readily realisable. We would draw your attention to the risks associated with these investments as there is a restricted market for them. In some circumstances it may therefore not be possible to deal in the investment or to obtain reliable information about its value.

Our services may also include advice on investments relating to, or executing transactions in unregulated collective investment schemes. Accordingly, you should carefully consider whether such investments are suitable for you in light of your personal circumstances and the financial resources available to you.

Please be aware that investments can fall as well as rise and that you may not get back the full amount invested.

The price of investments we may recommend may depend on fluctuations in the financial markets, or other economic factors, which are outside our control. Past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance. Specific warnings relevant to the investments, investment strategies or other products we recommend will be confirmed to you in your Suitability Report.

Please note that any products we have arranged for you will only be kept under review as part of an ongoing service for which you agree to pay. Any ongoing service will be agreed with you and confirmed in our Client Service Agreement.

Neither William James Financial Services nor its employees are qualified to render legal or accounting advice or to prepare any legal or accounting documents. It is hereby understood and agreed that the onus is on you the client to refer to a solicitor or accountant any point of law or accountancy that may arise during the course of discussions with us.

Client money

William James Financial Services is not permitted to handle client money and we cannot accept a cheque made out to us (unless it is in respect of an item for which we have sent you an invoice) or handle cash.

Documentation

We will endeavour to make arrangements for all your investments to be registered in your name unless you first instruct us otherwise in writing. All policy documents will be forwarded to you as soon as practicable after we receive them.

Cancellation rights

In most cases you can exercise a right to cancel by withdrawing from the contract. In general terms you will normally have a 30-day cancellation period for a life, pure protection, payment protection or pension policy and a 14-day cancellation period for all other policies.

For pure protection policies, the start of the cancellation period will normally begin when you are informed that the contract has been concluded or, if later, when you have received the contractual terms and conditions. In other cases, the cancellation period will begin on the day the contract is concluded or, if later, the day on which you receive the contractual terms and conditions. Instructions for exercising the right to cancel, if applicable, will be contained in the relevant product disclosure information which will be issued to you.

If you cancel a single premium contract you may be required to pay for any loss you might reasonably incur in cancelling it which is caused by market movements. This means that, in certain circumstances, you might not get back the full amount you invested if you cancel the policy.

Additional protection

In the event that you are dissatisfied with a recommendation we have made, you may be entitled to make a complaint. We have a complaints procedure that is available on request. If you wish to register a complaint, please contact us:

  • Write to: The Compliance Officer, William James Financial Services, Spaces, The Mailbox, 3 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RD

  • Telephone: 0121 392 9897

For your further protection if you cannot settle your complaint with us, you may be entitled to refer it to the FOS at www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk.

We are covered by the FSCS. You may be entitled to compensation from the scheme if we cannot meet our obligations. This depends on the type of business and the circumstances of the claim.

  • Investments: most types of investment business are covered up to a maximum limit of £85,000

  • Insurance: advising and arranging are covered for 90% of the claim, without any upper limit

Further information about compensation scheme arrangements is available from the FSCS at www.fscs.org.uk/consumer. Please be assured that we treat complaints very seriously.

Conflict of interests

We will endeavour always to act in the best interests of you, our client. However, circumstances can arise where we or one of our other clients may have some form of interest in the business being transacted for you. If this happens, or we become aware that our interests or those of one of our other clients conflict with your interests, we will write to you and obtain your consent before we carry out your instructions. We will detail the steps we will take to ensure fair treatment.

Termination

Should you wish to terminate this agreement we will require 30 days’ notice in writing to our registered address. If this agreement is terminated, the termination does not affect any accrued rights and obligations that exist. We also reserve the right to terminate this agreement and will provide 30 days’ notice in writing.

Termination is without prejudice to any transactions already initiated which will be completed according to these terms of business unless otherwise agreed in writing. You will be liable to pay for any transactions made prior to termination and any fees outstanding, if applicable.

Protecting YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

To provide our services properly we’ll need to collect information about your personal and financial circumstances. We take your privacy seriously and will only use your personal information to deliver our services.

Processing of your personal data is necessary for the performance of our contract for services with you and in meeting our obligations to preventing money laundering or terrorist financing. Generally, this is the lawful basis on which we intend to rely for the processing of your data. (Please see the reference to special categories of data below). Our policy is to gather and process only that personal data which is necessary for us to conduct our services appropriately with you and to prevent money laundering or terrorist financing.

We adopt a transparent approach to the processing of your personal data. Sometimes, we may need to pass your personal information to other organisations. If you apply to take out a financial product or service, we’ll need to pass certain personal details to the product or service provider.

We may engage the services of third-party providers of professional services in order to enhance the service we provide to you. These parties may also need to process your personal data in the performance of their contract with us. Your personal information may be transferred electronically (for example by email or over the internet) and we, or any relevant third party, may contact you in future by what we believe to be the most appropriate means of communication at the time (for example telephone/email/letter etc.).

The organisations to whom we may pass your details also have their own obligations to deal with your personal information appropriately. Sometimes a product or service may be administered from a country outside Europe. If this is the case, the firm must put a contract in place to ensure that your information is adequately protected.

We will issue you with our Privacy Notice. This is a separate document which provides more information about the nature of our personal data processing activities and includes details of our retention and deletion policies as well as your rights of access to the personal information that we hold on you.

As part of this agreement, we’ll ask you to consent to the transfer of personal information in accordance with the protections outlined above.

Special categories of personal data: There are certain categories of personal data that are sensitive by nature. The categories include: Data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership and data concerning health. Depending on the nature of the products and services that you engage us for we may need to obtain your sensitive personal data particularly in relation to health. Our policy is that should we require any special category of personal data we will only gather this with your explicit consent.

If you are concerned about any aspect of our privacy arrangements, please speak to us.

Anti-money laundering

We are required by the anti-money-laundering regulations to verify the identity of our clients, to obtain information as to the purpose and nature of the business which we conduct on their behalf and to ensure that the information we hold is up to date. For this purpose we may use electronic identity verification systems and we may conduct these checks from time to time throughout our relationship, not just at the beginning.

Disclosure of charges and fees

All charges and fees will be fully disclosed to you. These will be disclosed in summary form before we undertake any work for you. The precise charges relating to any work or recommendations we make will be confirmed in your Suitability Report or relevant product disclosure information that is provided to you.

Our remuneration

Following our initial discussion (at our expense), once we have been appointed by you to act on your behalf, there is a cost for our services. Although we will not apply any charges until you have agreed how we are to be paid, our fees are payable whether you take up our recommendations or not and will be subject, in most cases, to our minimum advice-fee agreement.

We offer a variety of methods by which we can be remunerated so that you can select the method that best suits your needs. We will discuss your payment options with you and answer any questions you have.

In the majority of cases our initial and ongoing service fees will be based on an understanding that our advice will lead to a recommendation for you to purchase a retail investment product with an ongoing service agreement. This means that we can make sure that our agreed fees are as tax efficient for you as possible.

We will tell you if you have to pay VAT and if there are other costs that might arise in connection with the services we provide to you.

Paying for our services

We will discuss your payment options with you and agree with you how we will be paid.

You can pay agreed adviser charges by cheque only; we do not accept standing order, direct debit or cash payments. Our charges will become payable on completion of our work and should be settled within 28 business days. You will be provided with a receipt upon payment.

If your investments are held on a platform, you may choose to pay our adviser charges out of the funds held with the platform cash account (where the platform provider offers this facility). If this method is selected, it is important that sufficient funds are maintained in the account to cover our adviser charges as and when they become payable. We will discuss the implications of using this payment option with you prior to putting it in place.

You may also pay our adviser charges via deductions from the financial product(s) that you invest in, where the product provider allows this. Please note that if you choose to pay by deduction from a financial product this will reduce the amount left for investment and may, depending on your circumstances, have other consequences. If you select this option, we will discuss the implications of using this payment method with you prior to putting it in place.

Please note that a minimum charge may be applied even if you choose not to invest in a product. We reserve the right to charge you for our time or services provided if you choose not to proceed or choose to cancel this agreement.

Rebalancing and cash weighting (Model Portfolio contracts only)

To ensure that the correct asset allocation of your portfolio is maintained part of our ongoing service is to rebalance your portfolio. If this is not done the original agreed asset allocation may ‘drift’ over time and could, in some circumstances, change from the original risk profile agreed. Rebalancing back to the original asset allocation and fund selection is designed to avoid this. We will rebalance your portfolio without contacting you if no fund switches have been recommended by our Investment Committee in a 12-month period, or if your cash account requires additional funds to pay ongoing fees.

Our portfolios may include a cash weighting which is normally 2%, although if you are taking income the cash weighting may be higher. Your Suitability Report will confirm the cash weighting applied to your portfolio. Cash is maintained in order to pay for agreed ongoing adviser and platform fees, where applicable (see below – Client-agreed adviser charging and cash management). The regular rebalancing process will also help to ensure that sufficient cash is maintained in the future.

Client-agreed adviser charging and cash management, rebalancing and cash weighting (Model Portfolio contracts only)

With your prior agreement, we can arrange for our initial advice fees and our ongoing service fees to be deducted from the retail investment product(s) we recommend rather than charge a fee direct to you; this is known as a client-agreed adviser charge.

Of course, the client-agreed adviser charge reduces the amount actually invested and may, depending on your individual circumstances, have other consequences. If you choose to pay initial and/or ongoing service fees via this option, we will discuss the implications of using this payment method with you prior to putting it in place.

Where we agree to deduct adviser charges directly from your investment, we will endeavour to ensure that this is done in the most tax-efficient way possible. In certain circumstances, this may mean that initial advice fees and ongoing service charges for a tax-efficient investment (for example an ISA) are taken from another investment product(s), or from your cash account (if applicable) rather than reduce the valuable tax advantages of your investment. If this is not possible we will explain the implications to you.

You will, in all cases, always have the option of paying a fee to us rather than deducting it from your investment product(s).

If for any reason your tax position changes, you should contact us as paying our initial fees by way of a client-agreed adviser charge may have unforeseen negative impacts on your financial position.

Depending upon the platform/wrap provider selected for you, the ongoing advice fees may be taken either by encashment of units within your plan or from the plan cash account. The basis for your recommended solution has been confirmed in our Suitability Report already provided and we have considered your current tax position. If the tax legislation changes, this withdrawal instruction may have unforeseen negative impacts on your financial position.

Where you have agreed to pay the plan provider charges and our ongoing fees for the advice and service that you will receive from us throughout the year from cash held within your platform/wrap cash account, we must make sure that you have sufficient funds in your cash account(s). This may be achieved automatically by the rebalancing process as part of our ongoing service (see Rebalancing and cash weighting).

Where encashment of units takes place to cover ongoing charges and fees, the number of units held within your plan will be reduced.

You will receive separate confirmation from your platform/wrap provider confirming the agreed adviser charges to be paid from your account. For details of the platform/wrap provider’s charges, please refer to your suitability report and/or the platform/wrap provider’s terms and conditions documents.

Changing your portfolio/switching funds, rebalancing and cash weighting (Model Portfolio contracts only)

If we recommend a fund switch or any other amendments to your portfolio as part of our Service, we will provide details of the reasons for our recommendation before the transaction takes place. We will either send a letter to your home address or an email depending on your preferred method of communication. We will require written confirmation from you – in the form of an email, fax or letter – that you wish to proceed with our recommendation. If we do not receive your written confirmation, we will assume that you do not wish to proceed with our recommendation and we will take no further action until the next review. Please note that we make no additional charges for any of the changes recommended.

Paying by instalments (Regular premium contracts only)

Where you invest in a regular premium contract (i.e. where contributions are made on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis), you can choose to pay your adviser charge in instalments (note that the option to make a single payment is still available). Exact details will be confirmed with you in writing. Where you are investing in a product, you can choose to have your adviser charge deducted from the product through instalments (where the provider is able to offer this facility). Although you may pay nothing to us up front, that does not mean that our service is free. You still pay us indirectly through deductions from the amount you pay into your product. These deductions could reduce the amount left for investment and may, depending on your circumstances, have other consequences. If you select this option, we will discuss the implications of using this payment method with you prior to putting it in place.

Where you have opted to pay our adviser charge by instalments, these payments are linked to the ongoing payment of agreed regular contributions into your plan (until the agreed adviser charge has been paid in full). In the event that the regular contributions to your plan are not maintained (before the agreed adviser charge has been paid in full), we reserve the right to request full payment of any outstanding balance of the charges for our services.

Ongoing services

Unless the product recommended to you falls under the terms of our separate Client Service Agreement, where we have arranged any investments for you they will not be kept under review and we will not give you any further advice on these particular investments unless you specifically request it.

We can offer you an ongoing service on certain investments which will provide periodic reviews and ensure that recommended products remain relevant to your circumstances. Details of what is included in each of these services are provided in our Client Service Agreement.

Payments for the above services can be made either by regular fee (paid by standing order) or by deduction from your investment(s) on a monthly, quarterly, six-monthly or annual basis, where the product provider is able to offer this facility. These deductions could reduce the amount left for investment and may, depending on your circumstances, have other consequences. If you select this option, we will discuss the implications of using this payment method with you prior to putting it in place.

Protection business

You can pay for our advised protection services by fee, commission or a combination of these. In relation to non-investment protection contracts, if you wish us to work on a fee basis the fee will be based on an hourly rate subject to a minimum fee of £750. Any commission can be used to offset this fee. Please refer to our Fee Agreement for details of our current hourly fee scale.

Where we are paid by commission, we will tell you the amount before we carry out any business for you. In respect of any regular premium policy which we have arranged for you, should you subsequently cease to pay premiums on the policy and in consequence we are obliged to refund the commission that has been paid to us, we reserve the right to charge you a fee representing the amount we have to repay for a period of up to four years after commencement of the policy.

We will confirm the exact amount that will need to be repaid by you, and the time-scale over which it will need to be repaid, in the Suitability Report we will send you when a recommendation is made. We will not charge any such fee if you exercise your right to cancel in accordance with any cancellation notice sent to you by the life insurance company. However, we do reserve the right to charge you for the time we spend dealing with your affairs if you subsequently exercise your right of cancellation.

Non-advised services

You can pay for our non-advised services on the basis of commission or fee. We will tell you how we get paid and the amount before we carry out any business for you.