Our guest contributor this week is Carlos Panksep, the Managing Director of the CEFEX Centre for Fiduciary Excellence.

Like with everything else, most people seek the best performance at the best price for the services they receive. This should be the case for your finances. As your savings grow, your investment options also grow and therefore financial decisions can impact your future. At some point, you may decide that managing your investments has become too complicated or nerve-racking for you. So, you decide you need professional help.

However, selecting an investment professional - or an advisor can be a challenge. Sometimes it’s difficult to judge what makes one advisor better than another. You could rely on referrals from trusted friends or family, but then you might wonder: what was the basis for their decision?

The investment industry has become amazingly complicated, so many of us feel better when an expert is on our side. We hire lawyers to plead our cases. We select doctors when our health is a concern. And we hire builders and mechanics to fix our homes and cars. So hiring a professional to manage your money makes good sense.

There are many aspects to consider when hiring an advisor. But the first mandatory question is whether he or she is a ‘fiduciary’.  A fiduciary, like a lawyer or doctor, will act in your best interest. Once this role is in place, you want to be assured that the fiduciary uses the industry’s best practices.

How?

Corporations use methodical due diligence processes when selecting suppliers. This usually involves issuing a Request for Proposal (RFP) to multiple suppliers, performing interviews, reviewing samples of work and undertaking extensive comparative analysis. Corporations often hire expert consultants to conduct this process for them, similarly hiring the consultants to act in the corporation’s best interest.

You can do this too. However, do you have the time and expertise? Probably not.

One solution is to use an advisor which is certified by the Centre for Fiduciary Excellence, or CEFEX. CEFEX-certified advisors are fiduciaries who are audited on an annual basis against a standard of practice. An independent fiduciary expert collects evidence of the advisor’s investment practices. Think about how helpful that is to you. In essence, the due diligence is done on your behalf!

This short video provides a great summary.

If you’re concerned with managing your own money, consider hiring a fiduciary certified by CEFEX.

Resource of the Week

This video (referenced above) is a quick way to become acquainted with the reasons for retaining an advisor certified by CEFEX.

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