Five traits of a poor financial advisor

Ramalingam KHolistic Investment Planners

How do we decide upon choosing a good financial advisor?

A person can be termed as one, who is a true value addition to your financial wealth as well as provides you with profitable advice to enhance your quality of life. In other words, any person qualified enough to advice you on your fiscal matters so that you gain the confidence to follow that advice. This was just a brief definition for a right financial advisor.

Now, let us look at the other side in more detail. Thereby, let us try figuring out a few points below to help you decide that the advisor with those characteristics is not the right one for you.

1. Behave in a condescending manner:Not all clients seeking advice have to be necessarily cultivated and polished, on their financial matters. Such people may also take much interest in their money matters. Yet for a financial advisor, it is always a duty to explain the reason behind his course of action. Also, he should illustrate his financial product in a way that makes sense to the client end. In a case where you feel that your advisor is letting you down or fooling around you, then be assertive about never to trust upon such an advisor.

2. No reply to calls and/or mails:It is obvious for a good financial advisor to be busy, but not so that he does not have a fair amount of time for his clients. Doing this should be unacceptable, and clearly shows your lack of importance in the advisor’s schedule. The optimal way, whenever a client makes a practical request, is to receive an early response to their queries. There is no sense in paying your advisor, if he is not devoting his sufficient amount of time into providing you the right financial advice.

3. Absence of honest opinion:For a healthy relationship between client and advisor, an honest and open communication are two very important aspects. This should exist on both sides. Sometimes, the client may express his desire to go for a particular investment. In such cases, it is the duty of a good financial advisor to keep his client informed about the rights and wrongs of the particular financial investment. If the advisor does not do so, he is lacking in his service delivery. After all, it is the money of the client that the advisor is advising for. A good advisor will never flatter his clients, just for earning his commissions and fees.

4. Deny you seeking help from a third party overseer:Never trust upon a financial advisor, who prevents you from having your account with a caretaker involvement in between. Wondering how having a mediator in between will be beneficial? A third party custodian will send you statements independent of your advisor, and in usual cases will also offer you the online accessibility for your account.

5. Focus on personal interests:This is among the most common issues arising, when dealing with commission (or compensation) based advisors. For example, the advisor might recommend you for investments that may not be the best solution for you, but is beneficial for him otherwise. Therefore, it is always good to be alert and safe by asking more questions. This will help you understand your advisor’s compensation techniques, and check if the same can ever be a conflict of interest to the advisor in providing the apt advice.

Therefore, the points stated above should be considered as the least characteristics that one should look for in his financial advisor.

Conclusion:

For an advisor exhibiting any of these features mentioned above on a regular basis, is a clear indication for you to begin looking for a new financial advisor.

The author is Ramalingam K, CFP CM is the Chief Financial Planner at holisticinvestment.in, a leading Financial Planning and Wealth Management company