Throughout the website you'll find links to information and calculators that we hope will be useful in thinking about your financial planning.
We are highly experienced Consultants offering advice about:
Protecting (link)
- yourself, your health, your family, your assets, your income or your business against life's risks in the future.
**Read our jargon busting glossary (link) **
**Get a low cost life insurance quote (link) **
Retirement planning (link)
- aiming to make the increasingly long lives many of us will live as enjoyable as the right amount of money can make them.
**If you know how much you want - work out (link) how much you need to save**
Investment & Saving (link)
- making the money you don't spend now worth more when you come to need it or want to spend it (or give it away), in the future.
**What effect will inflation have on your money? (link) **
**What's your attitude to investment risk & reward? (link)**
**Estimate the value of your savings (link) & investment (link) in the future**
**Calculate the real (APR) return (link) on your money**
Mortgage, or Equity Release (link)
- to raise capital, but covering borrowing of all types.
**Work out what your repayments (link) will be on a mortgage**
**And how many years you'll save by 'overpaying' (link) a loan or mortgage**
**Get an idea of what you might raise through Equity Release (link)**
Debt reduction
- because we believe that for many people it is unprofitable to be a borrower. Reducing debt costs can transform long term finances.
**Work out how long it'll take to pay off your credit cards or loans (link) **
And all of this, when necessary, with a wary eye on the taxman; where can we benefit from his generosity? Where can we properly avoid the painful 'sting' of tax payments?
'A Safe Pair of Hands'
Are we the right people to advise you? Do our attitudes and values fit with yours? Unless you know where we all stand in the financial consultancy marketplace, choosing the right consultant can be difficult.Here then, is what we are and what we proudly stand for:
Independent or Tied?
Very Independent indeed.
Typically, the 'advice' Bank and Building Society employees give is limited; they can only talk to you about products within their own company's range. We believe that this is rarely real advice – except in the sense that you are usually 'advised' to buy something. Doesn't that sound more like selling than advising?
Omega Consulting is an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA). We are fiercely independent; we work only for our Clients, never on behalf of financial institutions. We will always advise clients in their own (not our own) best interests – even if that means advising them to do nothing at all.
We do not, any longer, belong to one of the IFA 'clubs' or 'networks' because we really do not want to have to fit our business model into someone else's construct, or have our client relationships dictated by someone else's idea of what it's 'safe' to say or do. Instead, we are directly authorised by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). So we are beholden to no-one - except our clients. We always try to form long term relationships with clients so that we are there to offer guidance and advice as life situations develop and change.
Small or Large?
Small enough to offer a very personal service. Large enough to have a good deal of specialised knowledge and expertise in some of the increasingly complex subjects that make up the Financial Planning world.
We are a Limited Company with 4 fully qualified and highly experienced advisers; at the moment we are 3 men and 1 woman. We have been this size for the past 4 years and because, in the past, we've all worked for large impersonal organisations where administration and systems became more important than clients, we have no plan or desire to 'grow' a great deal.
We just want to keep things as simple as we can - and be good at what we do.
Expertise
Each of us has more than 15 years experience in advising people across a broad financial spectrum and we would all, as a consequence, regard ourselves as good 'General Practitioners' with a healthy practical knowledge of our subject.
As our legal framework has changed (and continues to change) and as financial services become ever more complicated as a result, we've felt the need to develop some extra individual expertise in areas of capital raising (mortgage & equity release), in retirement planning (pensions & alternative savings) and, perhaps most complex of all, in Investment issues.
We are not unique in believing that acquiring this greater depth of knowledge is essential for the future good of our clients, but you may find our ability to interpret and present the technical in words that are easily understood unusual, and appealing.
Services & Processes
It may be that you have a particular problem or area you need to discuss; just that and no more. If so, we promise to focus our energy on it and not to waste your time discussing all the other areas of financial planning that might be interesting, unless, in the process of gathering information from you, we become aware of some actual or potential danger in your present financial arrangements. If we do, we will flag up a warning (a red flag warning!) but whether you take it up will be entirely in your hands.
It may be that it's just been too long since you last carried out a full financial review; you may be in need of what we call 'a wash & brush up.' Here we'll look at what your goals are in relation to your income, expenditure, assets and liabilities – and then set these in the context of every investment, pension, savings plan, mortgage, loan and life/health insurance protection policy that you already have – to produce a detailed snapshot of how things really are.
Many of our clients live in Norfolk; we can meet face to face. Many more do not, so we operate a thriving and rapidly growing internet enquiry service. Although this is particularly useful for obtaining reduced cost life protection, clients can get advice across the whole range of our expertise.
We understand that financial planning isn't everyone's idea of a good time; but we know that it's important to do it, and to get it right. Whether face to face or electronically, our advice process follows the same tested and logical path. We:
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Take your 'brief' – so we hear what you want to talk about and why
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Get from you (and often from providers of policies and investments you already hold) all the information we need to be able to properly advise; a 'Fact Find' in the jargon of our business
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Consider possible routes that will achieve the outcome you briefed for us and, through research, work out which will produce the best result
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Present our findings for discussion and decision
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Where action is taken, monitor the results for discussion at planned future meetings and then make changes when the time is right
Costs & Charges
There is no charge for an initial consultation whether it be through internet, email, 'phone or in person.
Beyond that we offer a choice in the way we are paid. This is always discussed at outset so we promise no sudden surprises. Clients stay with us because we offer real value for the money we charge. See Key Facts about our Services and Costs.
Help is at hand
We hope you find this website a useful tool and that it helps your thought process in whatever area of financial planning you are considering.
We look forward to hearing how we might be of help.
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