Helping you to look after your clients’ wealth
As Estate Planners and Will Writers, you perform a hugely valuable role for your clients. Guiding them through the complex but important process of planning their legacy – to help them organise their affairs. The peace of mind you offer to your clients is priceless. As your expertise gives them greater confidence their wishes will be followed.
At Skipton Building Society, we can help you do even more to look after your clients. We offer advice on investment and pension planning. By referring our financial advice service to your clients, we can help them to make stronger long-term financial plans. And you can be confident they’ll receive the same high standards of personalised service you’re providing.
- FCA research suggests there are 18 million people in the UK who could benefit from financial advice – that figure is likely to include many of your clients.
- However, it can be difficult to get access to financial advice. Many organisations require customers to have a large amount of savings already, ruling thousands of people out.
- At Skipton, we offer financial advice to anyone with £20,000 to invest or re-invest. It’s part of our mission to offer the right financial help to as many people as possible.
After over 30 years offering financial advice, we fully understand that for many people, financial advice is not something they’ve considered before – perhaps thinking it’s too expensive. It’s one of the reasons why we’re changing the way we do business. We’ve recently reduced our charges, and introduced a Business Development Team. This allows us to work closely with local businesses to support each other.
By recommending our services to clients who might have a need for financial advice, you can do even more to support them. And if it turns out we can help them with their investment and pension plans, they’ll be even more grateful to you for putting them in touch with us. This strengthens your already strong relationships with your clients.
And that’s not all. We believe these relationships should be mutually beneficial – which is why we will pay you a referral fee for any clients you recommend to us who take our advice.
You already do a fantastic job with your clients. We’re here to help you offer even more services.
1. Skipton Building Society's story started back in 1853
Throughout history great characters have driven great stories and for us, our customers have been central to that… ever since the Victorian age. Over the last 167 years we’ve helped generations of members – through good and difficult times – and we’re better placed than ever to help even more people in the future.
Times change, but our commitment to helping people plan for the future stays the same.
2. Strength in numbers
With over one million members and growing, we’re still dedicated to helping your clients build better futures. You can be confident your clients will be very well looked after if you refer our services to them. Just like you, we treat every client as an individual. We never forget it’s their financial future that matters.
3. Our focus is on your clients
Our mutual roots have kept us keep us grounded all these years and that’s what makes us stand out from banks. We don’t have to answer to shareholders, instead we’re shaped by our members who vote on the way we operate.
We also feel it is important to build stronger relationships or lending a helping hand when needed and being active in the local community helps to do that.
When you’re part of a mutual, your opinion matters.
So now you know a little about us, let’s work together to help your clients even further.
Your Questions Answered
Skipton Building Society is a long standing mutual that has been providing a financial advice service for over 30 years. The Society has helped thousands of customers with their financial plans – from buying a home, to saving and investing for the future. We have 88 branches, and over 1 million members.
At Skipton our advisers offer financial advice with a no pressure promise. There is no upfront fee for your clients to receive our personalised recommendations. This means they’ll only have to pay a charge if they decide to act on the advice.
We’ve got checks in place to make sure every client receives the same high standards of personalised advice – and to check they understand the advice they’ve received.
Just as you strive to offer a personal touch to your clients, you can be assured that we will treat every client you refer to us as an individual.
We don’t offer Skipton products. For straightforward financial needs we typically recommend funds from Aberdeen Standard Investments (ASI), who we have worked closely with to develop a range of options exclusively for our clients.
If your client’s needs are more complex, our in-house technical team continually researches and maintains a panel of fund options from many different providers. Our advisers use this panel to offer personalised recommendations.
We’ve chosen to offer restricted financial advice. Our in-house team of experts research thousands of funds – assessing their performance, fund manager strategy and prospects. This allows our advisers to consider options from across the market and develop a financial plan that’s suited to your clients’ circumstances.
As we’re not an independent adviser, there are certain products we don’t advise on. We prefer to specialise on areas of the market that we think are suitable for our typical customers.
At Skipton we recognise the importance of delivering excellent customer service. That’s why we aim to contact all referrals within 48 working hours.
With over 80 financial advisers, and branches located across the country, we can see your clients in their home, in a branch or through our award-winning Skipton Link video service. You will be kept informed on what stage your client is at as they move along the process. We understand how valuable your clients are to you and you can be assured that we will provide a high level of customer service to them.
Skipton Link is our video appointment service that is secure, free of charge and easy to use. It allows your clients to have the same face to face service with their financial adviser that they’d have in branch without leaving the comfort of their own home.
We’re currently following government advice and asking customers only to visit our branches if it’s necessary. Therefore, all financial advice appointments will be held over Skipton Link video service rather than in branch. Your clients will still receive the same high level of service as they would in a branch and will still be able to view important documents securely throughout their appointment.
We can offer you and your team tailored free training and support to help you to generate referrals.
At Skipton we recognise the importance of building up trust with both our clients and organisations like yourself. And that is why we put service at the forefront of what we do. We also don’t insist on having exclusivity, as we know clients may already have this trust in place with their own adviser and we understand that.
There is no expectation on referral numbers. We simply want to help you by providing a financial advice service to your clients when the need arises.
At Skipton we believe good financial advice should be available to more people. It shouldn’t just be for the wealthy few and it isn’t a one size fits all. But advice you can trust that’s designed around your life, your goals and your future. Therefore, we are on a mission to provide financial help to as many people as possible.
Your clients can invest from as little as £20,000 as a lump sum or £500 a month and we can review pension pots from £50,000. There is no obligation to act on our advice and all this service is delivered with a no pressure promise.
Absolutely. We have a wide number of financial advisers who are introducers. We can offer a service for clients with over £20,000 to invest or a pension of over £50,000 to review. If this is below your minimum threshold for clients get in touch, and let’s talk about their needs.
Yes, we believe that working together should be mutually beneficial. Therefore, we have an Introducer referral fee that will be discussed as part of your initial meeting.
We currently work with other financial advisers as introducers primarily to support with straight forward financial needs. We also have an acquisition proposition which sees us buying client banks from advisers either leaving the industry or diversifying their portfolio to focus on high net worth clients. We are open to discussing all business opportunities and ideas on an individual basis.
News and Updates
Looking back at the beginning of 2020, very few of us would have predicted that we’d be in the grips of a global pandemic. With Government relief packages in place, social distancing enforced and health concerns at the forefront of our thoughts, these certainly are unprecedented times.
With leading experts around the globe working tirelessly to develop a vaccine, we have to stay safe and patient. The important thing to remember is that we will move forward from this together, with a renewed sense of purpose.
Looking to the light at the end of the tunnel
Considering the positive side of things whilst all the turmoil is going on around us might be difficult, but if certain things can be made easier for your clients, that can only help. Especially if your clients are looking to discuss their financial future with an expert.
We can support your clients with financial planning, where they can get advice tailored to their financial needs – with no upfront fee. They will only pay a charge if they decide to act on any advice or recommendations. And as a thank you for recommending our services to them, you’ll receive 25% of the initial charge if they decide to take up advice.
Tailored advice that you can trust
We’ve been advising customers on their financial needs for the past 30 years. Whether it’s savings, investments or legacy planning, now could be the ideal time for your clients to review the plans they have in place.
If you have a client who you feel could benefit from speaking to a dedicated financial expert from the comfort of their own home, Skipton offer a complimentary consultation service to help them discover if financial advice is right for them.
Inheritance tax (IHT) is just for the super-rich and social elite among us. Right? Well that’s actually a popular misconception. Many people get caught out by this and because they don’t feel it applies to them, don’t even consider it. This unfortunately results in people not having right plans in place when the times comes.
Taking the necessary steps now is highly recommended. It could save a client you’re helping to arrange a Will for, if they have a potential inheritance tax liability. By referring them to us, you could potentially save their family thousands of pounds in the event of their death.
If you feel your client may have an inheritance tax liability, Skipton Building Society can offer clear, honest and personalised advice – with no pressure to act.
Protecting their estate
Everyone is allowed to leave an estate valued at up to £325,000 free from inheritance tax. Some clients might also be able to benefit from the new ‘main residence nil rate band’ of £175,000, giving a total allowance of £500,000 per person.
Did you know?
- That there are many ways your client could reduce their potential liability, some of which involve making use of annual allowances. It’s recommended they seek financial advice to discuss the options available.
- If you refer a client to us, we will make them aware that IHT planning may involve stock market based investments. Stock market based investments aren’t like bank and building society savings accounts though, as they may get back less than they invested.
What are the next steps?
- Does your client need help with inheritance tax?
They may already know the answer to this, or they might be unsure. At Skipton we offer a wide range of different appointment options: over the phone, by video link, in one of our branches or at their home – by referring them to us they choose what works best for them.
- We’ll talk to them about their situation
We’ll talk about if inheritance tax is likely to affect their family’s inheritance. Then we’ll go away and create their unique financial plan tailored to their situation. Simple as that.
- What will happen then?
We’ll meet with them again to explain their plan – in plain English. If your client decides not to act on it, that’s fine. We won’t pressure them into doing anything they don’t want to. It’s our No Pressure Promise.
- Bringing the plan to life
We’ll agree how much help your client needs from us to put the plan into action and any ongoing support they might need once it’s in place. They will only be charged if they go ahead with their plan, and we’ll talk about costs up front, so no surprises later.
It is important to note that some inheritance tax planning solutions put your client’s capital at risk, as they may get back less than they invested. Inheritance tax thresholds depend on their individual circumstances and prevailing legislation, both of which may change in the future. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) does not regulate most forms of inheritance tax planning.
Skipton are here to help
Through the Skipton inheritance tax planning service, we’ve already helped thousands of customers put meaningful plans in place to tackle their problem. And we’d love to see what we can do for your clients.
Contact Us
Downloads and Resources
Please be aware that customers who you refer to us will place their capital at risk if they choose to accept our advice.
Skipton Building Society is a member of the Building Societies Association. Authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority, under registration number 153706, for accepting deposits, advising on and arranging mortgages and providing Restricted financial advice. Principal Office, The Bailey, Skipton, North Yorkshire BD23 1DN.
About The Society of Will Writers
The Society of Will Writers is a non-profit making self-regulatory organisation whose primary objectives are the advancement, education and ethical standards within the will writing profession.
Contact Us
The Society of Will Writers
Chancery House
Whisby Way
Lincoln
LN6 3LQ
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Tel: 01522 687888
E-mail: [email protected]
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Registered in England and Wales. Company Number: 02918900.
