Acorn Partners educating and changing the mind-set of financial advice in Bangkok

BANGKOK - Feb. 11, 2015 - PRLog -- Anyone who has been an expat in Thailand for a few years or even in many parts of Europe, will be familiar with the routine calls you will receive from financial companies offering to ‘look after you’ regarding your pensions and other savings you may have.

It may come as a shock that some of the more well-known names in the centre of Bangkok must now change their structure, giving in to the pressures of their bad reputation and are now having to restart and re brand.

I recently met a young man who was, as he said a victim of the treadmill of this; ‘wind them up, get them calling, making appointments, and then spit them out regime’ that he said made it very challenging for him to do a good job;

“You answer the ads for salespeople in the national press in the UK, to live the dream life on the beach and earn £100,000 a year in Thailand where everything is cheaper, you are promised a lot of support from these companies. However when you actually arrive the support is not what you expected, just a desk a phone, we were not even given a computer to use! But we were given a battered database of a lot of annoyed people who have been called on the phone incessantly for months and years and told to find more.

I never made a single cold call, for me because I knew from my background there were better ways to work with people, I would say I am one of about 16 out of the 20 odd that start each year, who leave after a couple of months, the others simply because they can’t support themselves any longer having not made any money” This is the story for the majority of the larger firms in Thailand." He told me.

Most expats regard these calls as a nuisance, sadly many firms who have gone about their client acquisition the wrong way; have actually made it difficult for otherwise genuine experienced financial people to get a message to expats about changes regarding products and solutions that actually do save expatriates lots of money, and whom have a genuine interest in long term relationships with their clients, including a need  to educate Westerners who are  living and working in other parts of the world other than their domicile, about the numerous tax advantages they have.

“What is needed in Thailand and across the world wherever Expats are living, is education, clarity and transparency, by letting the people know much more about the services that these companies offer, and a more open look into the companies, and for the expats to make an informed decision to whom they feel more comfortable with, after learning in a more open environment than the traditional; ‘one call, one meeting, sold, and never see your advisor again’ type of scenarios that has happened all too often here in South East Asia, which has made too many expats wary of financial sales people, and it’s sadly costing them a lot of money, so we are changing the bar”

Mark Steele from Acorn told me at his office last week.

“We are running a series of roadshows, and we are purposely staying away from the seminar type of meeting where people are invited and the majority of the audience are the company’s financial advisors and people are quite hard sold to at these events, oh no, we are coming to you, we will have a 15-20 minute talk and then a questions and answers session from the audience.

We are not there to sell financial packages, we are there to begin this much needed branding and educational process, so that expats can make up their own minds after seeing and listening to what financial advisors should do and how we are transparent to explain exactly the processes of how we advise people where to put their money.

In reality a financial advisor is just that; they are an intermediary between the large financial houses and the customer to help them make the right choice, you should never write a cheque out to any advisory, only to the large financial institutions; however on our roadshows we will be sharing some examples of how this could be misinterpreted.

We want to show people what are the actual and full charges they face for money management which should be explained in great detail, so much so that we would almost test our clients about their charging structure, so that we are 110% certain they know what they are paying for.  What are the regulations regarding financial advice for expatriates? This and many of those difficult questions will be heard and answered on our roadshows.

These are the kind of things any expat should be really knowledgeable about, but sadly because of the way some advisors who have over the years gone about things in too direct a way, which has made many expats shy away from good advice.

We are proud to say that the British Ambassador to Thailand agrees with us, and although understandably cannot back any particular firm he supports our programme of education and trust building in expat financial services.”

One of the senior advisors explained.

The guys at Acorn have countless years of experience in financial services and seem to me to be really determined to change the concept of expat financial advice through their educational programme and their branding, they don’t just want to tell you to trust them, they want to prove to you that you can.

You will be able to meet the lads and as they say; they really want you to grill them about the nitty-gritty of everything on their roadshows, and their depth of clarity could shock you. One thing is certain you won’t be getting any cold calls from Acorn, which is a great start.

Their first roadshow is at the Pattaya Expats club on the 8^th March 2015 and they want to hear your list of tough questions!

The types of people who would benefit from these roadshows are:

·        UK public servants (Ex NHS, Armed Forces etc)

·        American and Australian and European Expats

·        45-65 year olds who are retiring in Thailand

·        Oil and Gas workers

·        Teachers

·        Expats with children in Thailand

·      More information on the roadshows near you, are available by emailing; advice@acorn-asia.com.