Choosing a Forsyth Barr Financial Advice Service

Frequently asked questions

What does “financial advice” mean at Forsyth Barr?

Financial advice is help to make decisions about investing - based on your goals, how long you’re investing for, and how comfortable you are with risk. At Forsyth Barr, advice can include discussing your options, recommending an approach, and helping you understand the services available.
If you choose a discretionary service, the advice is generally about entering the service and setting the investment mandate (the rules and boundaries for how your portfolio is managed).

What’s the difference between advice and discretionary management (DIMS)?

With advice, you stay in control of day-to-day decisions - you decide what to buy or sell.
With discretionary management, you authorise a licensed provider to make investment decisions for you within an agreed mandate. That means they can act day-to-day without checking with you each time, as long as they stay within the rules you’ve agreed.

What is a DIMS, and who regulates it?

A DIMS (Discretionary Investment Management Service) is a service where you give a licensed provider authority to manage your investments for you within agreed guidelines.
In New Zealand, DIMS providers are licensed by the Financial Markets Authority (FMA), and the service is governed by disclosure documents that explain how it works, what it costs, and key risks.

How do I choose between Premium Advisory, Private Portfolio Management, and Navigator?

A helpful starting point is how involved you want to be:

• Premium Advisory: you work with an adviser and generally make the final decisions.

• Private Portfolio Management: a discretionary service where investments are managed day-to-day within a tailored mandate.

• Navigator: a discretionary service where the portfolio (often using managed funds) is managed within an agreed mandate.
  An Investment Adviser can talk you through the differences and help you choose a service that fits what you need.

Do I always need an Investment Adviser?

Not always - it depends on what you’re trying to do and which service you’re considering. Many people choose to speak with an adviser because it helps clarify options, fees, and what’s involved. If you decide to proceed with a service, you’ll be able to review the relevant documents (such as Scope of Service and disclosure information) before making any decision.

What research access is included?

Forsyth Barr’s services can be supported by research produced by Forsyth Barr and third parties. What you can access - and how you access it - can vary by service.
Your adviser can explain what’s included for the service you’re considering and how research is used to support the investment approach.

Where can I find the official documents (SDS / Scope of Service / licence info)?

You can find official information in:

• Forsyth Barr’s service documents (including service disclosure and Scope of Service information), and

• the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) register for provider and licensing information (including DIMS licensing).
  If you’re unsure what applies to you, an adviser can point you to the right documents.

Fees, incentives, and conflicts of interest in relation to financial advice

When you seek financial advice, in addition to considering the fees you pay for the advice and the fees and charges that apply when you act on the advice, you may also want to consider:

• any other payments or other benefits your financial adviser or financial advice provider, or another person connected with them, may receive in connection with giving you advice or you acting on their advice,
• whether any fees, charges, payments or other benefits are likely to materially influence the advice you get, and
• whether your financial adviser or financial advice provider, or another person connected with them, has any other interests likely to materially influence the advice you get.

We charge portfolio fees for some of our investment services and you will usually have to pay fees, expenses, or other amounts in relation to acting on any advice from us (such as brokerage and trade fees, and fund management and other investment management and administration services fees). In addition, in some cases, we receive payments from third parties when you act on advice from us. Generally, the bigger a portfolio or a transaction, and the more transactions done through us and the more services we provide you, the more revenue we receive. Also, many of our Investment Advisers receive remuneration from Forsyth Barr based in part on the portfolio fees, brokerage and other revenues we receive on the accounts they manage. 

These various payments create potential conflicts of interest and, as such, have the potential to influence advice provided if advice processes are not properly managed.  Forsyth Barr and our Investment Advisers follow processes, and we have oversight and controls, designed to ensure that the financial advice you receive from us is not influenced by fees, charges, payments, other benefits or other interests (see “Steps taken to manage conflicts of interest” below for more detail).

Steps taken to manage conflicts of interest

Forsyth Barr has a number of policies and procedures in place to ensure that any conflicts of interest are identified and managed and that our investors’ interests are always put first. These are:

• disclosing the existence of conflicts of interest to investors, including in the disclosure above,
• the Forsyth Barr Code of Conduct, which applies to all Forsyth Barr employees. The Code provides that employees must never permit their personal interests to conflict with or to appear to conflict with, the interests of investors or Forsyth Barr. All employees must make all reasonable efforts to avoid conflicts of interest and ensure that clients are fairly treated,
• compliance by our Investment Advisers with the Code of Professional Conduct for Financial Advice Services and NZX Participant Rules,
• internal monitoring by our Compliance team to ensure that our directors and employees comply with our duties to clients and all other relevant laws and rules, and
• regular reporting on compliance-related issues to our board.

Our complaints process

Your satisfaction is important to us. Visit our complaints information page.

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