Fee Only Investment Advisers

They say “There is no such thing as a free lunch”. One has to pay the price for anything and everything they consume, either directly or indirectly. Same holds true in personal finance as well. Historically, personal finance profession has bred, thrived and prospered on “commission model”. This is true not only for India but across the globe. Let’s understand how does commission model work.

For example, let’s say you want to buy insurance cover. When you buy insurance policy from your insurance agent all you have to pay is insurance policy premium. You don’t have to pay anything to the agent for his service. Service of insurance agent comes “Free of Cost” to you. But is it really for Free? Of course not !! Insurance agent makes money by earning commission on each policy she sells. This commission is paid by the insurance company. Insurance company takes into account the cost of commission while quoting premium for your policy. In simple words, your insurance premium goes up because of the commission paid by insurance company to the agent.

The next obvious thought that comes to mind is then why do we charge fees to clients? Why don’t we make commission? When working on commission model agent faces constant conflict of interest and dilemma – whether to sell a product that serves the best to client’s need or to sell a product which pays higher commission to her. Her loyalty may get divided. On the other hand we don’t face such conflict of interest because we get the same amount of fees from client irrespective of the product client decides to buy. Client’s interest and our interest are aligned and our loyalty stays undivided.

But is that the only reason you should decide to pay fees to us ? Nope, there are number of reasons why paying fees to us makes sense for you. Following are the reasons –

Have you ever thought why we all spend most of our adult life to make money? Because we all have different dreams, different aspirations. And most of these aspirations are fulfilled with the help of money. Ultimate goal is not to earn money. Money doesn’t have meaning in itself. It merely acts as a means to fulfill one’s aspirations.

We help clients to give meaning to their money. We help them identify their aspirations and goals and work towards achieving those goals in a planned and disciplined manner. We engage with clients in deep, meaningful and sometimes enlightening conversations to determine their goals.   

Unfortunately, most have us seen a family left stranded after a sudden demise or illness of head of the family. Kids’ education, festival celebrations, family vacations and quality of life in general suffers.

They say “life is full of surprises and uncertainty”. One need to protect interest of their loved one’s in case if something unfortunate was to happen to them. We discuss and advise on how to mitigate various risks.

We are not Insurance agents or Insurance brokers. We do not benefit in any direct or indirect manner from a client buying any Insurance policies recommended by us. We encourage clients to buy these policies directly from Insurance company’s website.

90% of people ending up not making the desired investment due to sheer inertia or some operational issue. You may get busy with pursuing your career, job, business, raising children or other aspects of our life that your personal finances get side tracked.

Our services come in handy during this time. We take over all operational tasks like nudgining you to make the desired investments and assist with operational changes such as change of address, change of bank accounts, dealing with bounced SIPs, initiating investment transactions, persistent follow-ups with clients etc.

At Fee Only we manage your expectations so that you are ready for the inevitable ups and downs in any investment journey. Like In cricket, you don’t expect a bowler to score runs or a batsman to take wickets we make sure that the rationale for each investment is explained fully and your expectations are managed effectively.

Imagine a person weighing 150 kg. He determines to get fit and in the process shed few kgs. He starts exercising at home. He starts exercising everyday. After 6 months, he stands on weighing machine and realizes that needle hasn’t moved even an inch. He then joins the gym. His Health Coach helps him exercise in the gym. Fast forward 6 months, he manages to lose a whopping 15 kg. He then realizes that his Health Coach’s job was not only to make him exercise. He had one more job and more so important, to manage his behavior. The Health Coach was also motivating him to eat healthy diet and sleep well.

As an investment adviser we play similar role to that of a gym trainer in our clients life. Yes, we give investment advise, but that’s not the only thing we do. We play more important role when it comes to behavior management. Eg. In times of high volatility and uncertainty, not letting client panic and handholding them to stick to disciplined investing.

We have a strong team of Chartered Accountants to assist in investment related tax planning. Harsh himself is a rank holder Chartered Accountant and is accoladed by personal finance community for having a perfect marriage of investment and taxation knowledge.

Our clients over the years have handsomely reaped benefits of this knowledge.

Harsh has 20+ years of experience in corporate world, start-up and advisory practice. He himself has gone through or witnessed his loved going through major life transitions. These can mean buying house, career change, moving to a different country etc. Lot of our clients go through similar life changing event. Harsh’s rich experience comes in handy during these time.

We make sure that our clients have a Will in place, and they are prepared for situations like COMA or an unconscious state of mind, by thinking through what all can be useful and handy in that situation. Which in turn helps their loved ones.

Suppose you get a bonus, and you ask our advice, whether to pay off the loan or invest? We have a conflict of interest as if you invest the bonus in financial assets the fee payable to us goes up. As an RIA, by law we are obligated to disclose conflict of interest and give you an advice. So that you’re able to take conscious decisions after taking into consideration the conflict of interest.