TERMS OF BUSINESS
TERMS OF BUSINESS
Aurelia Financial Planning Solutions Limited is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.
The firm is registered as an Insurance Intermediary under the European Union (Insurance Distribution) Regulations, 2018 and as an Investment Business Firm under Section 10 of the Investment Intermediaries Act, 1995 (as amended). Aurelia Financial Planning Solutions Limited is also an investment product intermediary and holds appointments with investment firms.
Copies of our regulatory authorisations are available on request. The Central Bank of Ireland holds registers of regulated firms, you may verify our credentials by searching for the firm’s name at Financial Service Provider Profile (centralbank.ie)
These Terms of Business (“Terms”) outline the basis on which we provide regulated financial services to our clients. Please ensure that you read this document. These Terms apply to all business transactions undertaken for you or services provided to you and will remain in force until further notice. Should we make any material changes to our Terms, we will advise you in advance of providing any further services to you.
Contact Details
Our registered and head office is at Toneygarrow, Glencree, Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow. Our company registered number is 740757 and our Central Bank firm reference code is C516671.
Our contact phone number is 01 2734826.
Statutory Codes
Aurelia Financial Planning Solutions Limited is subject to the Central Bank of Ireland’s Consumer Protection Code, Minimum Competency Code and Fitness and Probity Standards. These Codes offer protection to consumers and can be found on the Central Bank website at www.centralbank.ie
Services
Aurelia Financial Planning Solutions Limited provides financial planning solutions, including placement of business with life insurance companies and investment platforms, where appropriate. Our service incorporates regular reviews split between progress in relation to overall financial goals, and specific portfolio reviews to ensure recommendations remain suitable for our clients’ needs.
Protection, Pensions, Savings & Investments
Aurelia Financial Planning Solutions Limited is authorised by the Central Bank of Ireland to provide investment advice and to receive and transmit orders in the following investment instruments:
- Personal Retirement Savings Accounts (PRSAs)
- Listed Shares and Bonds
- Collective Investments
We provide investment advice based on an analysis of the investment instruments available to our clients via the investment firms we have appointments with details of which are available on request. Our appointments enable us to recommend a wide range of investments including, inter alia, listed shares, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and investment funds.
We are authorised to recommend and arrange transactions on behalf of clients in products offered by life assurance companies including protection policies and insurance-based investment products. We hold appointments with a number of insurance companies whose products we recommend.
In relation to permanent health insurance policies, it is our policy to explain to you a) the meaning of disability as defined in the policy b) the benefits available under the policy; c) the general exclusions that apply to the policy; and d) the reductions applied to the benefit where there are disability payments from other sources.
For a serious illness policy, we will explain clearly to you the restrictions, conditions and general exclusions that attach to that policy.
Fair Analysis
The concept of fair analysis describes the extent of the choice of products and providers offered by an intermediary within a particular category of life assurance, general insurance, mortgages, and/ or a specialist area. The number of contracts and providers considered must be sufficiently large to enable an intermediary to recommend a product that would be adequate to meet a client’s needs.
In order to ensure that the number of contracts and providers is sufficiently large to constitute a fair analysis of the market, we will consider the following criteria:
- the needs of the customer,
- the size of the customer order,
- the number of providers in the market that deal with brokers,
- the market share of each of those providers,
- the number of relevant products available from each provider,
- the availability of information about the products,
- the quality of the product and service provided by the provider,
- cost, and
- any other relevant consideration.
As at the date of these Terms of Business we provide life assurance, pensions and insurance-based investment products on a fair analysis basis as we do have agencies with a sufficiently large number of providers to perform fair analysis of the market.
Anti-Money Laundering
In order to comply with legal and regulatory requirements we are obliged to request information from you to verify your identity as well as your source of funds and to keep a record of this information. Before making a recommendation to you, we will request such information and documentation where we deem it necessary to meet our obligations.
Should you not provide satisfactory evidence of your identity within a reasonable time, we may not be in a position to provide the services described in these Terms to you. We may be required to request updated identity and verification documents from time to time.
Electronic Signatures
We may suggest that you sign documentation by electronic signature and/or we may do so and by entering into this terms of business you agree to this. We will provide you with copies of documents to sign via electronic signature software. You should be aware that an electronic signature is legally binding in the same way as a handwritten signature.
Requirement to provide information
All clients are required to provide sufficient information including contact details, financial information, objectives, needs and requirements and (where relevant) their risk appetite and investment time horizon to enable us to provide our services.
It is important that the information you provide is complete and accurate as it will form the basis for future advice, and we accept no liability for any omissions or oversights on your part. You are also requested to notify us of any material changes to your personal circumstances as these may impact on the advice and services, we can provide to you.
In entering into or renewing an insurance policy (such as e.g. a proposal form for life insurance, serious illness cover or an insurance-based investment product) you are required to answer all questions posed by us, or the insurer, in a proposal form honestly and with reasonable care. Specific questions will be asked. Where you do not provide additional information (after being requested to do so) it can be presumed that the information previously provided remains unchanged. Failure to disclose a material circumstance in response to a question asked may entitle an insurer to (a) avoid the policy from inception and in this event any claims under the policy would not be paid (b) impose different terms on your cover; and/or (c) reduce the amount of any claim payable.
Ongoing Suitability
Ongoing suitability assessments form part of our service to clients. This means that on at least an annual basis we will revisit our previous recommendations to assess if they remain suitable for you, taking into account any changes in your requirements that you have notified to us.
It is in your best interests that you review, on a regular basis, the products which we have arranged for you. As your circumstances change, your needs will change which may result in you having insufficient insurance cover and/or inappropriate investments. We would therefore advise that you contact us to ensure that you are provided with up-to-date advice and products best suited to your needs.
Sustainability Factors and Suitability Preferences
We are required to gather information about your preferences around sustainability as these relate to your approach to investing and investments. Your sustainability preferences will be captured as part of the initial fact-finding exercise.
When providing advice, the firm considers the adverse impact of investment decisions on sustainability. As part of our research and assessment of products, the firm will examine the Product Provider literature to compare financial products and to make informed investment decisions about ESG products. The firm will at all times act in the client’s best interests and keep clients informed accordingly. The consideration of sustainability risks can impact the returns of financial products.
Fees and Charges
Fees may be charged on an hourly rate for financial planning services and will be dependent upon the nature, complexity and urgency of the relevant work and seniority of the personnel required. This will always be discussed and agreed with you in advance of any work being undertaken on your behalf.
The hourly rates are as follows:
Directors €250
Advisors €200
Support Staff €100
Additional fees may be payable for complex cases. The basic hourly rate as outlined may be subject to change should additional factors arise. This will always be discussed and agreed in advance.
In circumstances where we consider it necessary to seek external professional advice to address your needs such as, for example, tax or legal advice in relation to estate planning or UK advice in relation to a UK to Ireland pension transfer, we will discuss this with you and get your consent to instruct the third party. This will include notifying you of the fees or scale of fees that will be charged by the third-party advisor which will be payable by you.
Protections, Savings, Pensions & Investments
The firm is remunerated by commission and other payments from the insurance and investment companies we have agencies with. We will disclose the specific fees and/or commission that is payable by you in advance of providing a service to you. These vary and are subject to change. The way in which we are paid for the services we offer also varies based both on the service provided and the product providers. We will also outline how we will be remunerated in our Statement of Suitability.
Note that we may receive recurring commission which forms part of the remuneration for initial advice provided.
We may also receive renewal indexation or trail commissions while your policy remains in force.
Investor Compensation Scheme
The Investor Compensation Act, 1998 provides for the establishment of a compensation scheme operated by the Investor Compensation Company Limited (ICCL) and for the payment of compensation to clients:
- If the client is an eligible investor as defined in the Act; and
- If it transpires that the firm is not in a position to return client money or investment instruments owned or belonging to the clients of the firm; and
- To the extent that the client’s loss is recognised for the purposes of the Act.
Aurelia Financial Planning Solutions Limited Financial Planning Limited is a member of this compensation scheme. The amount of compensation that you may receive under the compensation scheme is 90% of the net amount you have lost or €20,000; whichever is less. Full details of the Investor Compensation Scheme are available on www.investorcompensation.ie.
Brokers Ireland Compensation Fund
We are also members of the Brokers Ireland Compensation Fund. Subject to the rules of the scheme the liabilities of its members firms up to a maximum of €100,000 per client (or €250,000 in aggregate) may be discharged by the fund on its behalf if the member firm is unable to do so, where the above detailed Investor Compensation Scheme has failed to adequately compensate any client of the member. Further details are available on request.
Conflicts of Interest
It is the policy of Aurelia Financial Planning Solutions Limited Financial Planning Limited to act in the best interests of our clients and to avoid a conflict of interest when providing services. However, where an unavoidable conflict arises, we will advise you of this in writing before providing any business service and request your written acknowledgment that you are aware of the conflict of interest and still want to proceed.
We have a written policy which sets out the steps that we take to ensure that we avoid or, where this is not possible, mitigate conflicts of interest that may arise in providing services to you. These steps include administrative and organisational arrangements appropriate to the size, nature and complexity of the business to ensure that staff always act in the best interests of clients. A copy of the policy is available on request.
Data Protection
Aurelia Financial Planning Solutions Limited is a Data Controller as defined in the Data Protection Acts 1988 to 2018 (“Acts”). We collect personal data about you in order to provide the highest standard of service to you and in order to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. This includes account opening information and any other personal data you provide to us or that we collect or process in the normal course of providing the services set out in these Terms.
We take great care with personal data that is provided to us, taking steps to keep it safe, secure and private and to ensure it is used only for legitimate purposes and in accordance with data protection legislation including the Acts and the General Data Protection Regulation 2018.
The data which you provide to us will be held in electronic format on a computer database. Your data will be processed only in ways compatible with the purposes for which it was given. We may use your personal data for the purposes of:
- Providing the services, we have been contracted to provide to you including investment advice and receipt and transmission of orders.
- Reporting and management information, including quality assurance.
- Prevention of money laundering, financing of terrorism and fraud and otherwise complying with legal and regulatory obligations.
- Providing you with information about our services and products that may be of interest and relevance to you as we have a legitimate interest in providing you with information about our services. You have the right to ask us not to send you marketing material and, at any time, you can ‘opt out’ of receiving marketing material.
We may share your personal data with:
- Investment and insurance companies we have agencies with
- Regulators, law enforcement agencies and any other public bodies we are legally obliged to disclose such information to.
- Service providers of Aurelia Financial Planning Solutions Limited Financial Planning Limited who have undertaken to keep such information confidential.
In order to comply with regulatory obligations, we are obliged to retain personal data for a minimum period of 6 years or such longer period as we are directed to by law. You have the right at any time to request a copy of any ‘personal data’ that we hold about you. You may have other rights in relation to your personal data which apply in certain circumstances, and which are described in more detail in our privacy statement. You may request a copy of your personal data by writing to the Data Protection Officer, Aurelia Financial Planning Solutions Limited, Toneygarrow, Glencree, Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow.
By agreeing to these Terms of Business you acknowledge the processing of your personal data as set out herein.
Complaints
Aurelia Financial Planning Solutions Limited has a written procedure in place for the handling of any complaints that are made against our firm for services provided by us. This procedure ensures that all complaints are recorded and acknowledged in writing within 5 business days and are fully investigated. Any complaints should be addressed to The Compliance Officer, Aurelia Financial Planning Solutions Limited Financial Planning Limited, Toneygarrow, Glencree, Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow.
If you are dissatisfied with our handling of, or response to your complaint, you can refer the matter to The Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman. The Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman is a statutory officer who deals independently with unresolved complaints from consumers about their individual dealings with financial services providers. It is a free service to the complainant.
Further details relating to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman, including how to make a complaint, are available at www.fspo.ie, by telephone on Lo-Call Number: 1890 88 20 90, or by writing to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman, 3rd Floor, Lincoln House, Lincoln Place, Dublin 2.
Default
Aurelia Financial Planning Solutions Limited Financial will, if necessary, exercise its legal rights to receive any payments due to it from clients for business services provided by it and, to be reimbursed for any value obtained by the firm for clients arising from payments by the firm on behalf of clients who subsequently default in any payment due to the firm. Product Producers may withdraw benefits or cover on default of any payments due under any products arranged for your benefit. Details of these provisions will be included in your product terms and conditions.
Governing Law
These Terms of Business shall be governed by the laws of the Republic of Ireland. These Terms of Business are effective from 25th September 2023 and apply until further notice.
Aurelia Financial Planning Solutions Limited is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland
