IFA Jobs
Basically, IFA jobs involve developing and advising a bank of clients on how to achieve their financial ambitions in an efficient and suitable way, whether they are a person or a corporate business.
The difference between a tied financial advisor job and a vacancy for an IFA job, is that IFA jobs involve advising on financial products and services from across the whole of the market. Conversely, a tied financial advisor job involves just advising on the products of one life office or product provider.
An Independent Financial Adviser (IFA) has access to around 30,000 financial products across the market place and needs to recommend the correct product, which meets the individual client requirements. Because of the larger number of products available for an IFA to choose from, those considering vacancies for IFA jobs will need an ability to research the market, ensuring the correct product is selected and their clients' needs are met.
A major part of an IFA job is to "fact find" or talk through a client's situation to determine what is important to the client in terms of lifestyle aspirations, retirement options and needs to protect their family and/or income.
Usually an IFA should adopt a holistic financial planning approach with clients when doing his job. This kind of approach ensures that clients own the house where they want to live and are able to maintain the lifestyle whether they are ill or not, without the worry of debt.
IFA jobs are regulated by the FSA alongside all other financial advisor jobs, which advise on any product carrying an investment content.
IFAs often work alongside other professionals such as accountants and solicitors, who come across and are able to identify people with financial planning requirements. Some IFA jobs work on a fee basis. This means that the IFA charges for their time, as opposed to earning their money through commission from the product provider. The commission from the product provider is then funded back to the client. Some times a fee basis will save the client money. Alternatively, sometimes fees are charged where the work would generate zero or minimal commissions from the life office or product provider.
The entry level qualification for an IFA vacancy is the Certificate in Financial Planning, but the majority of IFA jobs require the candidate to show some commitment to professional development in the form of additional qualifications. There are around 38 different Advanced Financial Planning Certificate (AFPC) qualifications, from a number of different examination and awarding bodies. Often, to be considered for the top IFA jobs, a candidate should hold AFPC modules or be on their way to achieving the diploma level qualification.
Often IFA firms, and the IFA jobs within them, specialise in a certain area of financial planning such as pensions, lump sum investments, retirement options, IHT planning, corporate planning or employee benefits etc. These different specialisations require the candidate interested in the IFA job to hold certain modules or parts of the AFPC or Diploma qualifications. For example, an IFA vacancy with a strong pensions bias may require the candidate interested in the vacancy to hold the AFPC G60 (Pensions) module or IFA vacancies with a strong focus on trust work would like to see an IFA interested in the opportunity who holds the AFPC G10 (Taxation & Trusts) module.
An IFA job can lead to a multitude of different career opportunities within the profession. Often an IFA runs their own small (or large) business and this can be a rewarding and challenging role. In a larger IFA organisation the career path may well be available to move into a managerial capacity, which involves supervising other IFAs.
Often an IFA firm will have a specialist "business development manager" who will be responsible for generating new business enquiries through a variety of methods including professional connections, seminars and corporate connections. Some professionals move from an IFA job into a preplanning or paraplanner job because they enjoy the more technical nature of the work.
IFA jobs are changing because the Financial Services industry is changing and the way advice is given has to change with it. The Retail Distribution Review (RDR) is changing the IFA jobs market, as IFAs move away from a transactional method of doing business and into a fee based or new model adviser type business model.
Whatever happens there will always be a need by the public for sound, honest IFA advice and there will also be a need for top IFAs who can provide that advice, generate new clients and strive to look after those clients into the future.