While there are some similarities between SIPPs and QROPS, there are some integral differences that need to be understood too. SIPPS stands for Self Invested Personal Pension, and in reality a QROPS is a type of SIPP. Both of these pension options allow you to pay funds into them and offer some degree of investment flexibility. However, a QROPS is only available to people who are intending to leave the UK on a permanent basis – conversely, a SIPP can be held if you live away from the UK but have the intention to repatriate.

If you choose to invest in a SIPP, you will be entitled to tax relief on your contributions. Also, SIPPs tend to be less expensive to enter than QROPS, despite the general reductions in QROPS costs. In essence, a SIPP is the ideal pension choice if you wish to enjoy flexibility and stay in control of your money – but for expats living abroad, you need to be sure that you’re going to be returning to the UK.

Proposed QROPS changes could make SIPPs a better option

We’ve recently posted some articles on our news pages regarding proposed changes to QROPS. Although these changes have not yet been confirmed, there’s a good chance that from April 2012, in order to benefit from QROPS, your pension funds would need to be held outside of the UK for a minimum of 10 years – otherwise it will be treated in the same way as a UK pension. If you’re planning to take pension benefits within a 10 year period, you’re probably better off opting for the lower cost SIPP option.

Whether you ultimately decided to go for a SIPP or a QROPS , professional advice from a financial adviser is essential. Your financial adviser can help you to build and rebalance your SIPP investments, and a SIPP will allow you to pay in as much money as you wish whenever you want. If you’re working abroad as an expat, your salary may be higher than an equivalent position in the UK – with a SIPP, you can add this increase in income or any bonuses to your pension pot, with the option to reduce your contributions when you return to the UK. This differs from a traditional pension in that there’s no commitment to keep your contributions at a certain level.

Our adviser’s take on SIPPS

Ian Sweet, Commercial Director here at Guardian Wealth Management says: “HMRC created the QROPS market and now want to make changes that are unlikely to be in the best interests of the consumer. One has to ask if this is the beginning of an on-going erosion of the QROPS benefits. If you want certainty and a flexible pension scheme where you are in control of the investment strategy, whichever country you live in, then a SIPP is an ideal choice.”

If you’d like to talk to one of our financial advisers, to find out whether a QROPS or a SIPP will best suit your needs, please feel free to contact us via the link.

If you’ve been paying into a pension scheme whilst working in the United Kingdom but now plan to move abroad, a QROPS may well be of interest to you. QROPS stands for Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme – a bit of a mouthful, it’s the taxman’s mechanism for allowing you to transfer your accrued benefits to another country, which could save a lot of hassle in the long run. If it’s your aim to retire abroad, then it makes a lot of sense to get your pension plans in place as soon as you can, and that’s where a financial advisor comes in handy.

QROPS can be complicated, so don’t get caught out

There are a multitude of regulations that govern QROPS. They include explaining which countries and schemes are QROPS eligible, which is mostly governed by which countries Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs have agreements with. The current QROPS rules also offer significant advantages to an expat, including being free from any tax liability in the UK – and that includes protecting your investments from inheritance tax liability after five years. It also gives you the freedom to invest your pension funds as you (and your financial advisor) think best, rather than restricting you to schemes in the UK.

Of course, to make the best of QROPS, you need to get help from a financial advisor  who knows how the scheme works. We’re in a great position to advise you on whether QROPS will work for you, because we have a long history of working through all the financial challenges people face when planning a move abroad.

We’ve got the right experience to help

QROPS are something that isn’t often discussed in the mainstream media, primarily because it doesn’t affect a large proportion of the population. This is understandable, but it does mean that you need an expert financial advisor on your side when trying to figure it out. At Guardian Wealth Management, we have extensive expertise in dealing with all sorts of expat issues, so feel  free to contact a GWM financial advisor to help you make sure you get the best out of your QROPS arrangements.

When people start to look at their financial planning they often think that it’s a subject that they can deal with themselves. However, as they start to look at the different products and services available, it soon becomes clear that expert financial advice services are required in order to make the best decisions. Financial planning is all about making the right choices; when looking to invest your money or plan for the future you can be faced with so many different options that it’s hard to know where to start. By using Guardian Wealth Management’s financial advice services, you can retain full control of your financial planning while simultaneously benefiting from expert advice.

Getting the Best Financial Planning Help

For expats looking at organising their financial planning, it’s often the case that they do not fully understand the legal implications of the products that they’re considering. While there are many tax breaks and other advantages available to expats, without professional financial planning advice, it’s easy to stray off path and buy into a product that ultimately won’t deliver the results that you’re looking for.

By having a professional on your side that can act independently in your best interests, you can be sure that the financial planning that you put into place is tailored to your specific needs and circumstances. Perhaps you’re looking for financial advice services that will leave your family in the best possible position when the inevitable happens – while you may have some idea about inheritance tax planning, it can be hard to know the best way to alleviate inheritance tax and leave a healthy pot of money for your loved ones. Alternatively, you may be interested in education fees planning but you don’t know where to start – by using our financial advice services, we can talk you through your different options such as lump sum investments, offshore investments and savings plans to help you make the right choice.

Our Financial Advisors are Here to Help

Other financial planning elements that you may be interested in could include life insurance or private medical insurance – while it’s possible to source these products yourself, it’s hard to get an understanding of the marketplace without the help of a qualified financial advisor. Professional financial advice services give you the opportunity to gain an impartial and objective view of the different packages that may be available to you – which in turn can help you to make key decisions for your financial security.

Wherever in the world you may be, Guardian Wealth Management can provide you with expert financial planning advice, helping you to avoid common mistakes and buying into inferior products. If you’re interested in finding out more about our financial advice services , you can follow the link to read about the different types of financial planning support and guidance that we can offer – if you’d like to speak to one of our financial planning advisors, please feel free to get in touch via our contact page.

It may seem a bit scary to think about what will happen after you die, but the truth is that many people leave it until it’s too late. Our people are here to provide advice of the highest quality and do all that they can to ensure that, when the time comes, issues like inheritance tax are dealt with swiftly. At Guardian Wealth Management we strive to prepare the best possible plans for your estate, in a manner that shows both professionalism and sensitivity.

Another area where we really take pride in ourselves is our ability to advise UK citizens who live outside the country but are still subject to UK tax laws. If you’re an expat or international worker, finding the correct inheritance tax planning advice  is even more important, especially when you consider that the laws of more than one country may come into play. Our specialist wealth management advisors will be able to discuss the best options for you, no matter what your current situation.

QROPS: The perfect choice for expats

For those living abroad and looking for more freedom over their investments, a Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme (QROPS) may well be your best bet. If you’re not planning on staying in the UK, your money doesn’t need to either – and in fact it may result in a more comfortable life for you, simply by transferring your pension! A QROPS transfer can provide huge benefits for expats who currently have their finances locked down at home, so why not ask our trained advisors for more information about QROPS  and their potential benefits?

Talk to the professionals

Whatever you’re looking to do with your money, the team at Guardian Wealth Management is ready to give you the professional help you need. Whether you’re just starting out on your financial journey or are an experienced investor, speak to our people for solid advice on all money matters. From QROPS to inheritance tax advice, we’re here for you and your future.

Living abroad can certainly come with its benefits: a warmer climate, exotic food, and a more relaxed pace of life. However, if any medical emergency occurs, you may not be guaranteed the same quality of health care you’ll find in the UK, and if you do, it can be incredibly expensive. Medical insurance for expats is therefore incredibly important in guaranteeing security as you begin your new life abroad. Many expats arrange life assurance, but then forget this other essential element of their financial planning strategy.

The Benefits of our Expats Medical Insurance

At Guardian Wealth Management, we work in partnership with BUPA to provide high quality private medical insurance for expats. This means you’ll receive the expert independent financial advice that Guardian Wealth Management offer, including access to our life assurance portfolio, along with the excellent range of options offered by BUPA’s expat medical insurance. With Guardian Wealth Management, you’re sure to find an expat medical insurance solution to suit you perfectly.

BUPA’s 40 years experience specialising in providing private medical care means you can rely upon your expat medical insurance policy to give you healthcare of the highest order, should you ever need it. If you choose this expat medical insurance, you can gain access to over 7500 hospitals worldwide along with around-the-clock availability of medical teams, with expertise in the major languages of the world.

Your Life Assurance in Good Hands

In fact, as part of a responsible and coherent wealth management strategy, your expat medical insurance should be complemented by a life assurance policy that will guarantee your family will be properly looked after, should the event arise that you’re no longer around to provide for them yourself.

At Guardian Wealth Management, we provide expert advice to you, and can provide you with initial information on life assurance and medical insurance for expats free of charge. We understand the intricacies of life assurance overseas, and can help you plan for the worst case scenario.

Knowing that your family is secure and that your health is insured provides the peace of mind upon which you can build firm foundations for your new life abroad. It’s certainly worth your time to contact a Guardian Wealth Management independent financial advisor about expat medical insurance, or you can find out more about life assurance, using the links provided.

For many expats, the incentive to travel and work abroad comes from the opportunity to bring home a higher wage than they would in their home country. This allows them to save for the future – but expat financial planning also needs to include an element of protection, should anything unfortunate happen. As well as putting life insurance into place to cater for your family’s needs, critical illness cover should also be seriously considered – especially when the statistics show that expat workers have an increased risk of certain conditions; in fact, the chance of suffering from a stroke, heart attack or cancer diagnosis is three times that of those remaining in their country of origin.

It’s Easy to Overlook Critical Illness Cover – But a Mistake Nonetheless

Critical illness cover is often left out of expat financial planning because at the time of taking the brave step to work overseas, many expats are still fairly young and haven’t yet suffered from any serious health problems. However, if you’re unable to work while aboard due to a serious illness, you could be losing out on the very reason that you went international in the first place – to save a proportion of your increased salary for a better life in the future.

Another reason that critical illness cover can be overlooked is due to the fact that many employment contracts have life insurance terms included – the problem is, when reading the small print, it’s usually discovered that critical illness cover isn’t included as part of this benefit – and if this is the case, then organising your own critical illness cover is essential. When you also take into consideration that many expats who have moved abroad to work with families in tow will quite often be the only wage winner. If you’re in this position, and you were to fall seriously ill and unable to work, critical illness cover provides the means required to continue to support your family at a time where there will be many other stresses to deal with.

You can also choose additional elements with critical illness cover if you wish, such as Permanent Total Disability – which will give you the financial support you need if you were to be involved in an accident or become ill with a condition that leads to disability. Organising critical illness cover need not be complicated either – by using regulated, independent financial advisors to help you, you can hand over the majority of the administration to a professional, so you don’t have to worry about managing your expat financial planning yourself.

Our Financial Advisors Can Help

Here at Guardian Wealth Management, our expat financial advisors would normally recommend organising a critical illness policy that provides a payout at a rate of around four times your annual earnings, that said a lower amount of cover is better than none. We can also ensure that your critical illness cover is one that will be valid for anywhere in the world – so if your expat adventures take you to another jurisdiction, you’ll still have the peace of mind that your critical illness policy will cover you.

It’s clear that critical illness cover is an essential element of your expat financial planning strategy. If you’re an expat living and working abroad, Guardian Wealth Management has independent financial advisors situated all across Europe and the Middle East, and they’re ready and waiting to help you organise this crucial protection product. If you’d like more information on life insurance or critical illness cover for your expat financial planning, feel free to get in touch with our financial advisors today.

Fully regulated financial advisors are the only way to approach your retirement planning and QROPS transfers with total confidence. Here at Guardian Wealth Management, we have worked hard to gain the required authorisation from a host of regulatory bodies around the world. This means that all of our financial advisors, whether in the UK, Europe or the Middle East, have an obligation to uphold the strict standards of service and code of ethics as laid out by the financial regulatory bodies.

Advice for Retirement Planning and QROPS Transfers

When looking for a professional to help support you during your retirement planning and QROPS transfers, you need to be sure that you’re getting impartial advice that has been tailored to your own specific needs. By using our financial advisors, you can be absolutely certain that that’s exactly what you’ll get.

We are well aware of the unscrupulous, unregulated ‘advisors’ who claim to be professionals yet consistently and continually give advice without the correct licences and for their own gain. This abuse of trust is absolutely unforgivable, which is why we ensure that our financial advisors are up-to-date with any changes in legislation, and will only ever offer advice including retirement planning and QROPS advice that is appropriate to you, and has your best interests at heart.

HMRC are currently looking into the existing QROPS legislation, with plans and proposals put forward in order to make changes to QROPS and the various rules surrounding QROPS transfers. With retirement planning matters, QROPS and other important elements of wealth management constantly being revised and altered by the authorities, it’s important that your financial advisor can give you the most current information, in order for to you to make the best possible financial and retirement planning decisions. Our financial advisors have their fingers firmly on the pulse of any changes in the financial environment, enabling them to pass on their knowledge directly to you.

Guardian Wealth Management – Ready and Waiting to Help
If you’d like to talk to one of our financial advisors, you can contact us via our website, or alternatively, why not follow the link to learn a little more about who regulates us in the jurisdictions in which we operate.

You can also read more about retirement planning , pensions and QROPS on our website; so click on the link and take a look. When you’re ready to discuss things further, give us a call and we’ll be delighted to help you to get your retirement planning in order.

HMRC has published a detailed proposal outlining the changes that they wish to make in regards to QROPS, including a big change in reporting responsibilities. Since their introduction, some QROPS have been subject to investigation by HMRC due to poor conduct; the latest proposals are an attempt to revise the various conditions that each QROPS has to meet in order to be approved, and to seek a higher level of compliance to try to ensure that schemes are not abused. The objectives of the proposed legislative changes to QROPS are also an attempt to ensure fair taxation of transfers.

What Would Changes in QROPS Legislation Mean?

The changes as proposed on 7th December 2011, have been issued under the Finance Act 2012 draft legislation and while some new proposals were certainly not unexpected by the finance and pensions industry, the immediate reaction to these proposals seems to present concerns as to the impact of these changes if they are to go ahead. The main changes proposed include:

• Reporting – it used to be that when transferring your UK pension into a QROPS, you were required to report to HMRC for a period of five years after leaving the UK. If the proposed changes to legislation are approved, this reporting period will be extended to 10 years.
• Tax charges – every QROPS must be recognised by their own source country in regards to tax.
• Acknowledgement – the proposed changes to QROPS legislation would mean that anybody wishing to transfer their pension into a QROPS must first make an official acknowledgement of the potential tax implications regarding the transfer.

Following the announcement of these proposed changes to QROPS legislation, there will now be an eight week consultation period, which is due to end on 31st January 2012. If passed, it may cause significant changes in regards to the tax benefits that QROPS can currently offer to expats and could result in any tax exemption offered by the QROPS only being able to continue if the same rules apply to both non-residents and residents of the scheme’s jurisdiction.

Whether or not the consultation brings about any amendments to the proposed legislative changes, the final results will come into effect as of 6th April 2012.

Leading Advice on QROPS Transfers

Guardian Wealth Management is one of the world’s leading experts on QROPS. Our financial advisors can answer any questions you may have regarding QROPS transfers and the potential benefits a QROPS may offer, or any concerns that you may have about the proposed changes, as outlined above.

If you’d like more information about QROPS , follow the link to our QROPS page. Alternatively, you can download our FREE QROPS guide  in order to understand a little more about this expat alternative to UK pensions.

Upholding Ethical Standards in the World of Finance

The Robin Cosgrove Prize for Innovative Ideas for Ethics in Finance gives young people across the world the chance to put forward their own ideas regarding the financial industry. With the current state of the world economy, and the financial crisis that seems no closer to becoming resolved, this prize for ethics in finance has real relevance. The submissions to this year’s prize were of an incredibly high quality, and the process is an opportunity for young people involved in the financial industry to have their say regarding the continuing problems in the financial services sector. We’re all aware that there are still many advisors across the world that lack integrity, resulting in a loss of trust in the sector, and we all need to improve ethical practices and ensure adherence to service standards that should be followed by everybody in the world of banking and finance.

All entries for the Robin Cosgrove Prize for Innovative Ideas for Ethics in Finance came from outstanding young people all less than 35 years old, and all submissions were so good that it was almost impossible for the jury to decide who should be allocated the seven prizes on offer.

Announcing the Winners

After much deliberation, the winners for the 2010-2011 Robin Cosgrove Prize for Innovative Ideas for Ethics in Finance went to:

The winners of the global edition of the Prize are:
FIRST PRIZE: Jakub Kuriata – Ethics: A Diet For Highly Leveraged Financial Markets

SECOND PRIZE: Faly Ranaivoson – The Reconciliation of Finance and Ethics: Integrating the Interior and Exterior Dimensions of Reality

THIRD PRIZE EX-AEQUO to two papers: Simone Heinemann – Financial Derivatives and Responsibility – How to Deal Ethically with Financial Risk, and Bruno Federico Fernandez – Ethics vs. Finance? An analysis of the origins, problems and future perspectives of this relationship.

The winners of the regional Ibero-American are:

FIRST PRIZE: Nicolás Meyer – Solidarity finance and the democratisation of money.

SECOND PRIZE EX-AEQUO between three papers: Bruno Federico Fernandez – Ethics vs Finance? An analysis of the origins, problems and future perspectives of this relationship; Carlos Eduardo Estapé Viana – A critical view of the financial sector and the behaviour of people: What to do? and Carmen Lucia Carmona Paredes – Decision: The space between the code of ethics and ethical behaviour.

Why Choose a Financial Advisor at Guardian Wealth Management?

There are many good reasons to choose an independent financial advisor from Guardian Wealth Management. Firstly, from a location perspective, we can find you a financial advisor close to where you live, meaning that you get the personal touch and the opportunity to call on them for help when you most need it. We can provide you with a regulated and qualified independent financial advisor based in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Germany or Belgium; we can also offer our services in all EU countries. In addition to this we can offer you a financial advisor in the Middle East if that’s where you’ve chosen to start your new life; with advisors based in both Qatar and Dubai. Of course, let’s not forget our UK friends – we have independent financial advisors in the UK who can help you to develop your financial planning strategy and make the most out of your hard earned cash.

What Services Can an Independent Financial Advisor Offer?

When using an independent financial advisor from Guardian Wealth Management, you’ll be able to access a wide variety of different services to help you create a comprehensive wealth management strategy. For most people, financial planning encompasses several different facets, so you need to be sure that the financial advisor helping you has experience across the board. Across GWM we have a whole host of experience covering the many different financial products available.

So if you need an independent financial advisor  to find, for example, the very best savings plans or lump sum investment opportunities for you, Guardian Wealth Management can happily provide. You can also talk to a financial advisor about education fees planning (particularly useful for expats who want to ensure their children have a good education while abroad or to cover UK University fees), inheritance tax planning, life insurance and expat medical insurance too. Additionally, a Guardian Wealth Management financial advisor can help you with all of your retirement planning needs, including offering the very best advice about QROPS and pensions, where applicable.

When you’ve been slogging away for many years to amass a level of personal wealth, you want to know that you’re making the best decisions when it comes to managing your money. By using an independent financial advisor you can be sure that you will only ever be recommended products that are suitable for you and your circumstances, and at Guardian Wealth Management, we are licensed to operate  and have no affiliation to any particular product providers, so you know that all the advice you get will be with your best interests as the priority.