Licencing Information
Southern Ocean Financial Advice Limited, trading as Success Avenue (FSP776672) holds a class 2 licence issued by the Financial Markets Authority to provide financial advice.
Nature & Scope of Advice
Success Avenue provides personalised advice to our clients about their mortgages and life and health insurances. We also provide limited advice on KiwiSaver. Our financial advisers provided financial advice in relation to these financial advice products.
We only provide financial advice about products from certain providers:
For mortgages, we work with the following lenders
ANZ, ASB, BNZ, Westpac, Sovereign, Resimac, Bluestone, Pepper Money
For Insurance we use the following companies
AIA, Partners Life, nib, Fidelity Life, Asteron Life, Pinnacle Life
For KiwiSaver we work with the following providers
Booster, Generate, Milford
In providing you with financial advice, we will only consider existing term life products. We will not provide advice on existing whole of life or endowment products, so you would need to consult a specialist if you would like advice on those products.
When providing you with limited advice around KiwiSaver, we will provide you with generic advice based on what is usually suitable for people in a particular group based on common characteristics (such as age, etc). Our advice will not take into account your own individual needs or your personal situation except to the extent necessary to identify the group to which you may belong. You can use this generic advice to form your own opinion about whether the standard recommendations are right for you personally.
Generic recommendations may not be suitable for you. If you are concerned that this may be the case, you may benefit from comprehensive financial advice. Please let us know if you would like more comprehensive financial advice and we will direct you to somebody else to provide this advice. The nature of our advice is limited as outlined above. We will not provide you with financial advice on products other than those identified above.
Fees or Expenses
Success Avenue may charge a fee for the financial advice provided to a client where the client cancels a Life or Health policy within 24 months of inception, or a mortgage/loan is discharged within a 27 month. This fee is to cover the time spent by your adviser in providing the advice and facilitating the mortgage or insurance application, as original commission is required to be paid back to the lender or insurance provider by Success Avenue on cancelation.
If a new insurance policy or mortgage is taken through Success Avenue, then no fees would be payable. Whether a fee will be charged, the manner in which it would be charged and the amount will be clearly discussed with the client. The fee will be payable by the 20th of the month following the cancellation of the insurance policy or mortgage.
Conflicts of Interest & Incentives
Success Avenue and our Financial Advisers receive commission from the providers on whose products we give financial advice (the insurers, banks and KiwiSaver providers). If you decide to take out insurance, a mortgage or sign up to a KiwiSaver provider, the provider will pay a commission to Success Avenue and to your adviser. The amount of commission is based on the amount of the insurance premium, mortgage or KiwiSaver balance.
From time to time, product providers may also reward us for the overall business we provide to them. They may give us tickets to sport events, hampers or other incentives.
To ensure that our financial advisers priorities the clients interests above their own, we follow an advice process that ensures our recommendations are made on the basis of the clients goals and circumstances.
All our financial advisers undergo annual training about how to manage conflicts of interests, and the gifts and incentives we receive. Success Avenue also undertakes a compliance audit, and a review of our compliance programme is undertaken annually by a reputable 3rd party compliance adviser.
Complaint Handling and Dispute Resolution
If you are dissatisfied in any way with the service provided to you by Success Avenue you can make a formal complaint by contacting company director and Compliance Manager Juan Cumar (JC) by email jc@successavenue.co.nz or on 027 617 5885. You can make your complaint verbally, by email or letter.
We will acknowledge your complaint within 2 days and try to resolve your complaint within 10 days. We may need to ask you for further information or agree on an extension if the issue is complex or there are issues outside our control.
If we cannot agree on a resolution you can contact our independent external dispute resolution scheme, Financial Dispute Resolution Service.
Financial Dispute Resolution Service is an external financial dispute resolution scheme approved by the Minister of Consumer Affairs under the Financial Service Provider (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act 2008.
The Scheme can be contacted at www.fdrs.co.nz or 0508 337 337.
They will investigate your complaint and work to facilitate an agreed resolution. If this is not possible the Scheme may make a formal decision which is binding on Success Avenue, but not you unless you accept the decision. The process is free to you and the Scheme will assist you to lodge your complaint.
Duties Information
Success Avenue and anyone who gives financial advice on our behalf, have duties under the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013 relating to the way we give advice.
We are required to:-
- Exercise care, diligence and skill in providing you with advice
- Give priority to your interests by taking all reasonable steps to make sure our advice is not materially influenced by our own interests
- Meet standards of competence, knowledge and skill set by the Code of Professional Conduct for Financial Advice Services (these are designed to make sure that we have the expertise needed to provide you with advice)
- Meet standards of ethical behaviour, conduct and client care set by the Code of Professional Conduct for Financial Advice Services (these are designed to make sure that we have the expertise needed to provide you with advice)