Financial Services Advice
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Financial services advice, fickle as it can be sometimes, is available at online websites, at a planner's office downtown or even in well-known money advice magazines. The advice can be fickle at times because of uncertainties that the overall money market can present as well as the agendas of the advice givers. When the term financial services is used, the words most often convey packaged solutions, sold by banks, fiscal planners and insurance and investment companies. On the other hand, a money advisor is usually independent of any financial services company employment and works on a fee basis rather than commission. Fiscal counsel can very often pay off handsomely for the customers who buy and use the company's products such as life insurance, money market funds and investment tools. It is from that gain in wealth that the planner is paid a commission.
Before the late 1990's banks, investment houses, insurance companies and brokerage houses worked independently, each offering its own part of the product pie to potential customers. Then the federal government allowed them to merge and now large companies offer combinations of life insurance, investment packages and retirement plans under the same roof. The large mergers that resulted between large banks and corporations created a new service sector called financial services. And the agents for those new companies, called planners, now dispense financial services advice and products that have driven twenty percent of the money growth market over the last ten years. Many people have gotten much wealthier by following the counsel of the planners.
When a person seeks financial services advice from a planner or agent of a large money management company, the beginning exercise will be a full and complete disclosure of income, assets and liabilities. This would occur with either a planner or a fee based advisor. Nothing can be planned and no direction can be charted until the planner knows what the goals and desires are of the client. From that opening disclosure comes the overall packaged product that the planner recommends. In order to see the genius and grandeur of God's salvation plan for mankind, follow the words of Jesus. "Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 18:3)
With the power of merged corporations, counsel from money management planners might begin with a look at a person's life insurance coverage. Few people ever buy whole life insurance anymore which is very expensive but rather the look is to a term life insurance policy to cover sudden life loss of key economic members of the family. Financial services advice would be to at least have enough term insurance to replace the loss of three to four years income from a key family provider. For younger families term insurance can be very reasonable and will not be a large burden on a budget. For the family struggling with debt, another step might be counseled to take on the road to fiscal betterment.
Since money management services are very often linked to banks, it becomes possible for a client to apply for a debt consolidation loan covering unsecured and perhaps even some long-term secured loans at a lower interest rate right along with that life insurance purchase. With credit card interest rates often hovering in the 18-25% range and even higher, a consolidation loan at perhaps half the interest rate can lower a client's monthly payment and free up needed cash for other services the planner can extend. Financial services advice to borrow more money to cover bad debt is a hotly debated issue and while the solution may be good for a select few individual's circumstances, this particular product offered by a planner could be the wrong move in the long term. In realistic terms, cutting all debt would be the sanest approach to debt reduction so before a planner or advisor offers more debt to cover debt, a genuine approach to a mountain of fiscal obligations would be to shed many of the unneeded and unnecessary possessions one has accumulated over the years. Going to a simpler lifestyle truly ought to be one of the great hallmarks of genuine money management services advice.
Of course, investment opportunities are the bread and butter of the financial service industry. With the advent of the mergers, financial services advice will certainly include the purchase of investments such as money market investments that are pre chosen by the planner's company. Money markets and stock investments are not protected as bank deposits are and will be subject to losses and declines from day to day. Typically, extra income often found from a debt consolidation loan agreement would be encouraged to pay for the investment packages offered by the financial services advice planner.
For the most developed of financial service companies, there may even be the possibility of purchasing long term disability insurance, annuities and other financial products that can further enhance one's fiscal health and well being. There are no real negative downsides to the financial services advice received from these large financial institutions with the exception that if purchased together the products will provide agents with very large commissions year after year. Instead of employing one company to handle all of these services, it could well serve the customer to seek each of these products out individually and try to find more cost efficient models to employ in a plan to better manage one's assets. Of course there are more issues to tackle when it comes to money management such as estate issues, retirement goals and tax benefits, but following the counsel of a money planner will usually play out nicely for the consumer but there will be high costs for the products utilized.
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