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Terms of Business

Please read this document carefully. It sets out the terms on which we agree to act for our clients.

INVESTMENT SERVICES
Compass Wealth Management Consultants Limited is permitted to advise on and arrange (bring about) deals in investments.

With regard to investments, which we have arranged for you, these will not normally be kept under review. Should you require a fund review then do contact us to discuss. You should as a minimum review your investments annually. However, we may contact you in the future by means of an unsolicited promotion should we wish to contact you to discuss the relative merits of an investment or service which we feel may be of interest to you.

Compass Wealth Management Consultants Limited does not handle client's money. We never accept a cheque made out to us (unless it is a cheque in settlement of charges or disbursements for which we have sent you an invoice) or handle cash.

CLIENT CATEGORISATION
In providing investment services to you, we will categorise you as a 'retail client'. The type of client category will determine the level of protections afforded to you under the regulatory system. As a retail client the regulatory protections available to you are determined by this category and will be the highest available.

Where we have categorised you other than as a 'retail client' you may request re-categorisation under a client category which benefits from a higher degree of protection. However, we reserve the right to agree to such a re-categorisation on a case-by-case basis, and where we agree to do so it does not necessarily mean that you will have a right of access to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

CONFLICT OF INTERESTS
Compass Wealth Management Consultants Limited offers advice in accordance with that disclosed to you in our Initial Disclosure Document. Occasions may arise where we or one of our other clients 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 clients 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.

TERMINATION OF AUTHORITY
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 the Client Agreement unless otherwise agreed in writing. You will be liable to pay for any transactions made or carried out prior to termination and any fees which may be outstanding.

RIGHT TO WITHDRAW
In the case of a non-packaged product ISA or Pep recommended (e.g. a direct equity ISA) we will inform you in writing of any right to withdraw or cancel you may have or, if it is the case, we will inform you in writing that no such rights will apply.

CLIENTS RISK
You are advised that because investments can fall as well as rise, you may not get back the full amount invested. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.

Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage.

Failure to disclose all relevant information to an underwriter could result in an application and/or future claim being declined.

HOW WE CHARGE YOU FOR OUR SERVICES
Our income normally comes from either commission from the product providers (e.g. life assurance companies) we write business with, or fees paid to us by our clients. Whenever commission is available to us, you can choose whether to pay us by allowing us to keep the commission, or by paying us a fee instead. This is in line with standard industry practice. We will tell you how much the commission is before the transaction. If you choose to pay us by commission, we will keep the commission and not charge you a fee.

In respect of any regular premium policy which we may recommend 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, but we will not charge the fee if you exercise your right to cancel in accordance with the cancellation notice sent to you by the life company. Details of the commission payable will be notified to you in a specific key features illustration prior to any transaction proceeding.

If you choose to pay us on a fee basis, we will agree its basis, frequency and method with you in writing before we carry out any work that we charge you for.

We may also receive some form of benefit if we introduce business to a product provider or another firm. We will tell you before the transaction if we are likely to receive some form of benefit from recommending any product to you, or from working with any product provider or firm.

We will provide further details on the cost of our services in a separate document.

ACCOUNTING TO YOU
Unless in exceptional circumstances, we will confirm to you in writing the basis or our reason for recommending the transaction executed on your behalf.

We will also make arrangements for all your investments to be registered in your name unless you first instruct us otherwise in writing. We will forward to you all documents showing ownership of your investments as soon as practicable after we receive them; where a number of documents relating to a series of transactions is involved, we will normally hold each document until the series is complete and then forward them to you.

INVESTMENT OBJECTIVES & RESTRICTIONS
Following the issue of this document, any subsequent advice or recommendation offered to you will be based on your stated investment objectives, acceptable level of risk and any restrictions you wish to place on the type of investments or policies you are willing to consider. Details of your stated investment objectives will be identified during our discussions with you and confirmed in the suitability report that we will issue to you to confirm our recommendation. Unless confirmed in writing, to the contrary, we will assume that you do not wish to place any restrictions on the advice we give you.

DISCLOSURE OF CLIENTS PERSONAL DATA
The information you have provided is subject to the Data Protection Act 1998 (the "Act"). By signing this document you consent to any company or us associated with us processing, both manually and by electronic means, your personal data for the purposes of [providing advice, administration and management]. "Processing" includes obtaining, recording or holding information or data, transferring it to other companies associated with us, product providers, the FSA or any other statutory, governmental or regulatory body for legitimate purposes and carrying out operations on the information or data.

We may also contact you or pass your details to other companies associated with us to contact you with details of any other similar products, promotions, or for related marketing purposes in which we think you may be interested.

The information provided may also contain sensitive personal data for the purposes of the Act, being information as to your physical or mental health or condition; the commission or alleged commission of any offence by you; any proceedings for an offence committed or alleged to have been committed by you, including the outcome or sentence in such proceedings; your political opinions, religious or similar beliefs, sexual life; or your membership of a Trade Union. Please tick this box to withdraw your consent to us or any company associated with us processing any such sensitive personal data. [ ]

If you are not happy for us or any company associated with us to contact you for marketing purposes by e-mail or SMS, please tick this box. [ ]

If at any time you wish us or any company associated with us to cease processing your personal data or sensitive personal data, or contacting you for marketing purposes, please contact the Operations Manager on 02392 231448 or in writing at the address listed on this document.

You may be assured that we and any company associated with us will treat all personal data and sensitive personal data as confidential and will not process it other than for legitimate purposes.

Steps will be taken to ensure that the information is accurate, kept up to date and not kept for longer than is necessary. Measures will also be taken to safeguard against unauthorised or unlawful processing and accidental loss or destruction or damage to the data.

Subject to certain exceptions, you are entitled to have access to your personal and sensitive personal data held by us. You may be charged a fee (subject to the statutory maximum) for supplying you with such data.

YOUR DUTY TO GIVE INFORMATION
It is essential that you are aware of your own duty to provide full details of ALL factors, which a lender/insurer may wish to consider in relation to any proposal that you make. All answers given on any proposal form and any other statements made by you to us are your responsibility. FAILURE TO DISCLOSE MATERIAL FACTS CAN HAVE SERIOUS REPOCUSSIONS

PROCEEDS OF CRIME ACT
We are obliged to report to the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) any evidence or suspicion of money laundering at the first opportunity and we are prohibited from disclosing any such report.

CLIENTS CONSENT
This is our standard client agreement upon which we intend to rely. For your own benefit and protection you should read the terms carefully before signing, as by signing you consent to the terms contained within, including authorisation to transfer information between parties as described above. If there are any terms within this agreement that you do not understand, please ask for further information.

If appropriate, I/we have been provided with a copy of a leaflet entitled "You can afford your mortgage now, but what?"

I/we agree that the Client Agreement will come into effect from the date of issue of this agreement.
I/we have received an initial disclosure document referred to as 'key facts about our service.'
I/we have received an initial disclosure document referred to as 'key facts about the cost of our services' and have agreed the following payment option:

  • Paying by fee
  • Paying by commission (or product charges)
  • Paying by a combination of commission and fee
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