What We Believe
Fiduciary Standards
An investment fiduciary is any person or organisation who has a role in managing someone else's money.
The role of a fiduciary is to manage a prudent investment process, without which the components of an investment plan cannot be defined, implemented or evaluated. Statutes, case law and regulatory opinion letters dealing with investment fiduciary responsibility further reinforce this important process.PFS believes that every fiduciary needs to understand the breadth and scope of their duties and responsibilities. In our opinion this is often not the case, both in respect of licensed advisers or the many thousands of lay trustees in Australia.
PFS is willing to demonstrate how we comply with these standards, or assist you in assessing your own practices or those of a "prudent expert" you currently use.
Top 8 Fiduciary Questions Financial Advisers need to be able to answer:
- Have you provided your clients with a written Investment Policy Statement, updated at least annually?
- Do you meet with your clients at least annually to review portfolio performance and determine whether goals and objectives are being met?
- Do you personally review portfolio performance reports every quarter and measure against clients predetermined benchmarks?
- Have you reviewed the possible range of returns your clients portfolio may experience over a one, three and five-year period, and reviewed the range at least annually?
- Do you provide a written document describing the due diligence criteria for selecting and monitoring investments in your portfolio?
- Do you provide a quarterly performance report detailing inception-to-date, year-to-date and quarter-to-date returns after all fees?
- Do you provide a written document detailing investment fees and expenses?
- Are you able to provide investment portfolio gain/loss statements on demand?
