Attivo volunteers: Forces Money Plan

Chartered Financial Planner and Occupational Pension Specialist Katie White is an Attivo Associate Director. Here she explains how her volunteer sessions with the Forces MoneyPlan charity can be life-changing for the service men and women she meets.

Everyone deserves the best financial planning advice they can access. Still, for some, the discovery process – working through your finances and understanding the best way to move forward is harder than for others. For example, members of the forces can spend years out of the country and often may be in an environment where their future finances are not front of mind.

When Attivo Associate Director Katie White heard about a scheme to support our forces with their financial planning, she thought it was a great idea and has been volunteering for the past four years, guiding veterans and active service personnel.

Katie explains: ‘The Personal Finance Society (PFS) is our professional body, and each year, we have new learning and development goals as part of our Continuing Professional Development (CPD). One of their initiatives is the pro bono work to support the Forces Moneyplan charity. When I heard about this, I thought it would be a more interesting way to use my skills than just reading and updating knowledge in a traditional way, and it’s proved to be so rewarding.’

“Everyone deserves the best financial planning advice they can access.”

Lyn New from Forces MoneyPlan explains the importance of the charity: ‘Forces MoneyPlan was set up in 2016 because the PFS was approached by a forces charity after a number of their members had been victims of scams and fraudulent activity which had damaged their finances. We now have 35k members and around 300 financial advisors giving their guidance to the membership across the UK.

How financial advice can help

‘The veterans and serving personnel can be assured that the advisor they’re speaking to is a member of the PFS and is a professional in the field. They are under no obligation whatsoever to take the regulated advice they’re given. The client/advisor relationship terminates after they have had their meeting, and it’s entirely up to the client whether or not they would like to take up that relationship outside of the Forces Moneyplan offering.

‘The feedback we’ve had from our veterans and working servicepeople has been great – and sometimes life-changing. We have one man who retired after suffering from PTSD and then retrained to be a teacher. He wasn’t too sure if he would be able to buy his own home. The adviser he spoke to explained how it would be possible to do this, and it just shows the importance of having professional financial advice.’

“The feedback we’ve had from our veterans and working servicepeople has been great – and sometimes life-changing.”

Pension advice

Katie says: ‘We are there to give guidance rather than advice. We build a picture with service personnel of what could be possible. This free service explores opportunities and answers factual questions about pensions and investments. For example, I spoke to someone with three pensions – an MOD pension and previous employment pensions who was now freelancing. This person hadn’t considered how they might take all those pensions.

‘It turned out two of these pensions could boost his income and the third could be about benefiting his children on his death. So it was about whether or not he needed all the money and whether or not estate planning could form part of the conversation. He was very grateful because he hadn’t understood how you can pass on generational wealth in this way, that’s so tax efficient.’

Katie explains: ‘Where Attivo advisors excel is that we are so used to bringing every aspect of someone’s life together. They are always blown away by how much more they can get out of a session than they expect.

‘For example, a soldier’s brain is used to dealing purely with logistics, so I try to get them to think a little differently. I often say, ‘You have your money but what is the point of it? What would you like to do with it – what’s most important to you?’ this will help open the conversation up.’

“Where Attivo advisors excel is that we are so used to bringing every aspect of someone’s life together.”

‘I’ve met some fascinating people and I’d love to see more Financial Planners volunteering; the charity needs people across the UK because sometimes people are elderly or they might be injured and need to be visited in person.

*Find out more at Forcesmoneyplan.org.

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