About Us
- Financial Foresight can trace its roots back to 14th June 1982 and more formally to 7th November 1983 when James M Smyth Life & Pensions was founded in Ballygowan.
- In 1985 James M Smyth Life & Pensions moved in to the ground floor shop front premises and as well as providing financial advice started providing banking services as an Agent for the Halifax Building Society - this continued for over 25 years.
- In February 1986 the business bought its first office in Ballygowan from which it still trades today.
- Financial services advice became regulated on 29th April 1988 following the Financial Services Act 1986. This was one of many bureaucratic/regulatory changes that has so changed the delivery of financial services. All through these changes Financial Foresight (as James M Smyth Life & Pensions and JMS Financial Planning) have remained independent always working on behalf of the client. We were there at the start of these changes in 1988 and continue to help our clients and communities through the changes and challenges of personal financial planning to this day.
- There are few Independent Financial Advisers (IFA) trading now that have traded continually with the same personnel and premises since the Financial Services Act created Independent Financial Advisers in 1988.
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There are now many fewer Financial Advisers in the UK than there were in 1980's but the number of products from which individuals and companies have to choose have increased exponentially.
For example in the 1980's almost all mortgage products were identical whereas now sophisticated mortgage sourcing software is required to navigate the mortgage market. At one time there can be over 5,000 different mortgage products available for any one property! Whilst mortgages remain a significant part of our service,
we now mainly help people with investments and inheritance planning. -
Throughout the many changes since we started our core philosophy
has remained unchanged as we continue to: - From 1st January 2013 the then regulator, Financial Services Authority, reviewed how investments
were to be distributed. This Retail Distribution Review caused a major shake up in UK financial services.
It created a new type of investment adviser - Restricted. It also made the requirements to be an
Independent Financial Adviser more stringent. Financial Foresight opted to continue to offer fully
independent financial advice across all product areas.
a) Treat people as we would wish to be treated.
b) Strive at all times to be "a firm you can rely on".
"A business that makes nothing
but money is a poor business."
Henry Ford (1863 - 1947)