Award-winning Ambassador for Transparency
Leader of the Market Integrity Team of the Transparency Taskforce. Details at www.transparencytaskforce.org
Values Based Adviser Founder Steve Conley
Expert, Experienced and Empathetic
Financial Planning credentials of Steve Conley
Life Planner
Steve is a Master Life Planner with the world renowned Kinder Institute of Life Planning. He is the founder of the Academy of Life Planning. Author of Your Money or Your Life: Unmask the highway robbers - enjoy wealth in every area of your life.
Financial Planner
Steve is a Chartered Financial Planner. Twice winner (Associateship & Fellowship) of the British Insurance & Investment Brokers' Association Prize and twice winner of the Jubilee Prize of the Insurance Institute of Manchester. He is a Maths Graduate from Manchester University.
Proposition Architect
Steve was the Head of Investments for the retail banking arms of HSBC, RBS Group and Santander. He designed and implemented many market first, market leaders and award-winning propositions using his development framework.
Financial Services is an Industry that trades in TRUST
"I was Head of Investments and Pensions at three of the biggest five banks, HSBC, RBS Group and Santander; for over a decade I was the most senior and most successful investment professional in UK retail banking. I am a former Chair of the British Banker's Association Bancassurance Steering Group. I have been a multiple-award winning and chartered financial services professional since the late 1980's, when I headed up pensions for Refuge Assurance and later United Friendly, now part of Royal London Group.
Leading the investment proposition for banks and intermediaries since the turn of the century, I have six market firsts under my belt, plus six market leaders. One of my products won an award for best investment product in the world, the first client was the Pope and according to the World Health Organisation it contributed to saving the lives of five million children. I am best known as the developer of Platforms and Retail Multi-Asset Funds, eight out of ten investors use my products today.
Until I turned aged 50 (in 2011), I was a City Banker in the least trusted industry globally."
Values Based Adviser CEO Steve Conley
Why I Became a 'Fiduciary Financial Planner'
I then asked the question:
“What does financial advice best practice look like?”
At a time when Edelman’s Barometer registered the financial services industry as the least trusted globally, and research returned “Trust” as the critical success factor in banking, tackling the absence of Trust took me down a new path. This began my journey as an independent financial planner.
At first I was an 'intermediating financial planner'. But, then I saw the problem. We can't find trust when we are paid by the products we sell. There has to be a better way.
That's when I discovered that what mattered most to my clients was the life plan and the lifetime cash-flow forecast. That is, the financial plan rather than the financial intermediation.
The wealth management aspects are best self-built using platforms and passive retail multi-asset funds. They take 10 minutes to set up, and need little maintenance, and 99% of wealth managers can't beat them after accounting for their fees and charges. The cost savings for the client can be between 1% and 2% per annum, which over 20 years, say, equates to between 20% and 40% of their life savings.
In other words, financial planning is best kept separate from financial intermediation, with 'blue-water' maintained between them.
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