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Terms of Business
Terms of Business
The FSA is the independent watchdog that regulates financial
services. This document has been designed to be given to
consumers considering buying certain financial products. Use this
information to decide if our services are right for you.
Our Services
Prosperis Ltd is able to act on your behalf in advising you on
investments and non investment insurance contracts. We offer
products and services as follows:
- we offer investment products from the whole of the market
- we offer non investment products from a range of insurers
We offer you an initial discussion (without charge) when we will
describe our services more fully and explain the payment
options. If you decide to go ahead, we will:
- gather and analyse personal information about you, your
finances, your needs and objectives;
- recommend and discuss any action we think you should take and,
with your agreement, arrange relevant investments for
you.
Your Aims and Objectives
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.
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.
With very few exceptions, we will confirm to you in writing the
basis of our recommendation in a Suitability Report, which we
will issue to you following our recommendation, along with details
of any special risks associated with the product
recommended.
Full details of the products we may recommend to you including,
for example, the minimum duration of the product, information
on the right to cancel or whether no right to cancel arises, and
any other early termination rights and penalties, will be
covered in the relevant product disclosure information you
will receive before conclusion of any contract.
We will issue any documentation/recommendations and any other
communication to you in English (unless agreed otherwise).
In executing or transmitting orders on your behalf to third
parties, we will take all reasonable steps to ensure that we
obtain the best possible result for you in terms of best
execution.
We may also on occasion, advise on other financial products
which are not regulated by the FSA under the Financial
Services and Markets Act 2000. The Financial Services Compensation
Scheme 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 obtain reliable information about its
value.
Our services may also include advice on investments relating to,
or executing transactions in units 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 note that any products we have arranged for you, will not
be kept under review but we will advise you upon your request.
However, we may contact you in the future by means of an
unsolicited promotion (by telephone or post) should we wish to
discuss the relative merits of a particular product or service
which we feel may be of interest 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, or investment strategies, we recommend will be
confirmed to you in your Suitability Report.
Client Money
Prosperis Ltd 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. If there are a
number of documents relating to a series of transactions, we
will normally hold each document until the series is complete and
then forward them to you.
Cancellation rights
In most cases you can exercise a right to cancel, by withdrawing
from the contract recommended to you. 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.
The start of the cancellation period will normally begin, for
pure protection policies, 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, we may require you 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
We are authorised and regulated by the Financial Services
Authority ('FSA'), 25 The North Colonnade, Canary Wharf,
London, E14 5HS. Our FSA Register number is 223586. Our permitted
business is advising on and arranging pensions, savings and
investment products and non investment insurance contracts.
You can check this on the FSA's Register by visiting the FSA's
website www.fsa.gov.uk/register or by contacting the FSA on
0845 606 1234.
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 either;
In writing to: The Compliance Officer
Prosperis Ltd, 2nd Floor, 49a St Paul's Street, Leeds LS1
2TE
or
By phone:0113 234 5528
For your further protection if you cannot settle your complaint
with us, you may be entitled to refer it to the Financial
Ombudsman Service ('FOS').
We are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme
('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.
Most types of investment business are covered
for up to a maximum of £50,000.
Insurance advising and arranging is covered for
90% of the claim, without any upper limit.
Further information about compensation scheme arrangements is
available from the FSCS www.fscs.org.uk/consumer
Please be assured we treat complaints very seriously.
Conflict of interest
We will endeavour always to act in the best interests of our
clients. However, circumstances can arise where we or one of
our other customers may have some form of interest in business
being transacted for you. If this happens or we become aware
that our interests or those of one of our other customers
conflict with your interests, we will write to you and obtain your
consent before we carry out your instructions, and detail the
steps we will take to ensure fair treatment.
We obtain professional support services from threesixty services
LLP, who provide us with regulatory and business advice.
threesixty are supported by product providers, fund managers and
platforms, through the provision of training resources and
occasionally through commission payments made direct to them,
which can be used to offset our own fees to them. In the event that
threesixty is
remunerated through commission, this will be disclosed in the
literature provided to you, and in no way will it affect the
charges you pay.
Disclosure of charges/fees
All charges/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 recommendations we make
will be confirmed in your Suitability Report or relevant
product disclosure information that is provided to 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 timescale 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. There
is no additional cost to you for using a means of distance
communication.
Our Remuneration
Investment and Protection Transactions
Following our initial discussion (without charge) should you
decide to go ahead there is a cost for our services. We offer
a variety of methods by which we can be remunerated so that you can
select the method that best suits your needs.
The options:
1. Paying by fee.
Whether you buy a product or not, you will pay us a fee for our
advice and services. If we also receive commission from the
product provider when you buy a product, we will pass on the
full value of that commission to you in one or more ways. For
example, we could (a) rebate it to you in the form of enhanced
benefits (b) use it to reduce your regular premiums (c) offset
it against our fees, as appropriate.
2. Paying by commission (or product charges).
If you buy a financial product, we will normally receive
commission on the sale from the product provider. Although you
pay nothing up front, that does not mean our service is
free. You still pay us indirectly through product charges.
Product charges pay for the product provider's own costs and
any commission the provider may pay to us. These charges
reduce the amount left for investment. If you buy direct, the
product charges could be the same as when buying through an
adviser, or they could be higher or lower. We will tell you how
much the commission will be before you complete an investment,
but you may ask for this information earlier.
3. Paying by a combination of commission and
fee.
In some circumstances, we also charge a fee on top of any
commission we might receive.
We have detailed the options further below:
1. Paying by Fee
We have a number of fee options and you may ask us for an
estimate of how much in total we might charge. You may also
ask us not to exceed a given amount without checking with you
first. We will tell you if you have to pay VAT.
Hourly Rate
We will agree the rate we will charge before beginning work.
Our typical charges are:
Director £250 per hour
Senior Financial Adviser £175 per hour
Financial Adviser £125 per hour
Product Research £75 per hour
Administration £50 per hour
Fixed Fee
We will agree what we will charge you before beginning work.
A list of typical examples are shown below:
Full financial review £1,500
Pension transfer review £750
Fees can be paid by cheque or taken from the initial amount
invested into the contract.
2. If you choose the commission option (or product
charges)
We can offer a commission option for pure transactional
business, ie where the full Wealth Management Service is not
required.
The amount of commission payable can vary and depends on a
number of different factors - for example: the type of
product, the amount you invest, and (sometimes) how long you invest
for, or your age when you start the product. We will confirm
the actual amount to you before you buy a product.
For example:
If you make a lump sum investment we could receive 3% of the
initial amount invested plus 0.5% of the fund value on an
ongoing basis. This could amount to £300 initially if £10,000 were
invested, plus £50 per annum depending upon the underlying
fund value.
If you invested £100 per month into a pension we could receive
23% of the first years premiums plus 1% of all payments, this
could amount to £276 initially and £12 per annum.
Risk Management Service - if we recommend monies are invested
via the Risk Management Service we could receive 3% of the
initial amount invested plus 1% of the ongoing fund value, this
could amount to £3,000 initially if £100,000 were invested
plus £100 each year dependent upon the fund value.
3. Paying by a combination of commission and
fees
Commission can be used to pay for our services or used to offset
our fees agreed above.
Where a fee basis has been selected as the method of
remuneration, commission that would otherwise become payable
for policies arranged on your behalf will be (a) rebated to you in
the form of enhanced benefits (b) used to reduce your regular
premiums (c) offset against our fees as appropriate.
In the event of policy cancellations and where the policy
provider has sought repayment of commissions previously paid
by them, we reserve the right to charge a reasonable fee to cover
the cost of repaying such commissions.
We will discuss the different offsetting routes mentioned above
to assess your preferred option as part of the recommendation
process. We can offer a number of options to clients on how to pay
for our services depending on the work being done.
Non Investment Transactions
We invariably do not charge a fee for non investment
transactions but would tell you if this is not the case. You
will receive a quotation which will tell you about any other fees
relating to any particular insurance policy.
Termination
You or we may terminate our authority to act on your behalf at
any time, without penalty. Notice of this termination must be
given in writing and will take effect from the date of receipt.
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.
Data Protection
Your personal information is very important to us. We will
endeavour to take all due to care to protect this information.
We would like to highlight below a few matters relating to your
information that you should be aware of.
Some services are provided to Prosperis Ltd by third parties
such as processing business or obtaining compliance or
regulatory advice, which warrant the disclosure of more than just
your basic contact details. You agree that personal
information held by Prosperis Ltd may be disclosed on a
confidential basis, and in accordance with the Data Protection
Act 1998, to any such third parties. You also agree that this
information may be transferred electronically, e.g. email and you
agree that ourselves, or any such third party, may contact you
in future by any means of communication which we
consider appropriate at the time.
Product Providers, Lenders and Investment Managers may
administer your policy, any existing policies you may have
with them and provide other services, from centres in countries
outside Europe (such as India and the USA) that do not always
have the same standard of data protection laws as the UK.
However, they are required to put a contract in place to ensure
that your information is adequately protected, and they will
remain bound by their obligations under the Data Protection
Act even when your personal information is processed outside
Europe.
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 similar those used for credit checks and we
may conduct these checks
from time to time throughout our relationship, not just at the
beginning.'
For more information on electronic verification please visit the
attached link. This is becoming a common approach taken by
firms looking to minimise their risk of being used by politically
exposed persons or individuals that may be on the financial
sanctions register.
Your Consent
This is our standard terms of business upon which we intend to
rely. For your own benefit and protection you should read
these terms carefully before signing them. Please sign both copies
of this letter, and return one copy to us. If you do not
understand any point please ask for further information.
I authorise the transfer of information, on a confidential basis
when warranted between any such third parties. I acknowledge
that the Terms of Business Letter will come into effect from the
date of issue.
* Important - client must delete as
appropriate:
I also confirm that I AM / I AM NOT happy to
give Prosperis Ltd my express consent to contact me by
telephone to discuss advising on or arranging financial or
insurance products in future.
Customer Name(s)
Customer signature(s)
Date of issue
Date signed