The big story in planning circles so far this month seems to have been the acquisition of AXA’s Elevate Wrap by Standard Life.

News this week that the FCA has launched a campaign to protect the over-55s from financial fraud will probably have been ignored by most Financial Planners and Paraplanners. At the very best it will have received token interest. That’s a shame and that needs to change. Financial fraud is everyone’s problem and planners have a role to play in tackling it.

I’ve recently been reading Chris Budd’s excellent book about financial wellbeing (www.financialwell-being.co.uk). His key principle is ‘know thy self’ which means understanding what’s really important to you. To me, it makes sense that the way you invest money should reflect your values.

A lot of nonsense has already been written about Brexit today. I don’t plan to add to it.

Paraplanners have had an important role in financial services for a long time now. From what I've seen, references to Paraplanners have been made for around 20 years - back when they were a lonely, almost unknown role.

It seems a lot of firms are looking for new Paraplanners.

Financial advice has to do with delivering freedom into client lives rather than organizing financial structures and selling products. It’s about the client. Our Certified Financial Planning designation requires that we place the clients’ interests first, not our products or services. Too often what is called “financial advice” is really sales talk, all about the product – or occasionally, in our case, about spreadsheets and services.

A very warm welcome to our new website, Financial Planning Today - a service for all professional Financial Planners, Paraplanners, Wealth Managers and IFAs.

And so as the dust settles on April’s seismic changes to the pensions regime what can the Sipp market expect from a new Government and new Pensions Minister.

Showing my age, one of my all time favourite Motown songs is: “The world is like a great big onion” by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. I am reminded of this classic at every budget or autumn statement because our pensions world has been growing like an onion – with layer upon layer of complexity added almost every time the Chancellor gets to his feet.