Hi everyone, my name is Louise Fitzgerald. I am a fully qualified independent
financial adviser and my videos are going to tell you what that means,
what I do as a job and how I can help you. So essentially my job is to put
financial plans together for clients. It doesn't matter what age you are. Whether
you're in your late teens or early twenties trying to put together a
financial plan for your long-term future, retirement doesn't have to be the only
thing you do that for. Obviously there are things such as house purchases and
having children that you need to plan for, if that's something that you're
thinking about and obviously retirement is a big one that comes a lot later in
life. And even beyond retirement there are things like care fees that a lot of
people don't actually think about. These are all things in our lives that we need
to plan for, and so we need to put these things into motion early on in our lives,
so that it's not a last-minute rush when we get into our 50s or 60s and we
actually realise that we've left it too late to do anything about. To become
an independent financial adviser and to be able to put the letters DipPFS and
EFA after my name I've had to have undergone all the qualifications that are needed;
a series of exams that have to be done over two years which I completed in
August 2017. My job is very highly regulated and we have to complete at
least 35 hours of continuing professional development every year
also known as CPD. They ensure that your knowledge is kept up-to-date and
that you are aware of all regulations that are changing or any new products
that are coming to the market, and to enable you as an adviser to make sure
you keep giving your clients the most up-to-date information.
It's a continuous learning process so that we make sure that we can provide our
clients with the best advice possible. I am actually an independent financial
adviser or an IFA for a company called Horlock Holdcroft Financial
Consultants Limited based in Uckfield in East Sussex, but I've recently
launched, on social media, pages called Your IFA in my mission to make financial
advice more accessible to younger people, or younger generations who haven't
necessarily thought about financial advice or thought about how it applies
to them. As I said before, it's not something you have to think about later
in life. You don't need to be a certain age and you don't need to have a certain
amount of money. There are things you should be putting in place early days so
that your worst scenario is catered for. There are worse scenarios
than others but things like protection policies are particularly vital
especially if you own a property, or if you have children that you want to make
sure are looked after. I also want people to realise that financial advice doesn't
have to just be given in face-to-face meetings. These days technology has come
so far. Programs such as Skype, WhatsApp, video calling all that sort of thing
means that it doesn't have to be a location-based service that I offer.
Locality can be helpful to older clients who value a face-to-face meeting as in
an actual face-to-face meeting in the same room as each other, but for younger
clients I think they understand that having a Skype call is just as
enlightening and just as important as seeing someone face to face. My other
social media accounts are called Your IFA on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram
and obviously I'm on YouTube because that's how you're watching me today.
Do keep up to date with these pages. They all offer valuable information and
tips and informative pieces to keep my clients in the know, or just
information that you guys can look at so make sure that you know maybe something
you didn't realise before or something that you think that I can help with,
please get in touch and let me know. Or if you think there's a video that you
would like me to do, please let me know. I'm always looking for inspiration for
what I can talk about. So lastly a bit of compliance and regulation.
All my videos and all my posts are informative only. They do not
represent any advice. If you do want some personal advice please get in touch
and let me know how I can help you.