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Bulletin Board Offshore Boffin’s Bulletin Board is for subscribers to discuss issues of common interest with other members of the offshore investment community
It must NOT be used for promoting ANY products and services, nor must any offensive, pornographic, insulting or slanderous material be posted to it.
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| | [Paul] Has anyone established an investment relationship with Royal Skandia in the Isle of Man, and what are your experiences and thoughts of their level of service? |
| 19/03/2003 00016:18:26 | > [Sigma] Royal Skandia |
| | > Having worked for 2 offshore life companies in the IOM one of which was Royal Skandia I would say that it very much depends what you mean by service!!
Out of the two RSK are better by far but as with all large companies they make mistakes from time to time. The choice of company should depend on other issues as well as service |
| 08/08/2003 00011:42:15 | > [anonymous] |
| | > royal skandia are have some great products but if management is what you want then go to an ifa i had a bad experience with a broker,now i use barclay spencer international who take very good care of my vehicle.the kind of service that they have provided is excellent i would recommend that you check out their websitewww.barclayspencer.com |
| 22/03/2004 00013:55:37 | > [anonymous] Royal Skandia - Awful Customer Service |
| | > I've been dealing with Royal Skandia for 3 years now and find their service to be lacking in many regards. First, they continue to nail customers/policyholders/investors with more an more charges such as the 1% charge they now add if you use a credit card to invest money with them. That's seems to be their way of saying "Thank You For Your Business".
Of course, now their policy is to try to convince everyone to use a credit card so that they can sit back and rake in the cash at their customers expense. They even started to claim that they cannot accept wire transfer lump sums any longer and suggest that credit cards are the only practical way to make payments. That would be very good for them, but downright awful for me.
Second, they simply will not give straight answers to questions. I've asked many many times about the link between Royal Skandia and Skandia Sweden (where there was a serious financial scandal recently) and they sent me a very lame explanation. That makes me very nervous indeed.
I've also asked why their Eastern Europe funds grossly underperformed Eastern European Indexes for calendar year 2003 and they continue to this day to sidestep my questions.
They have hurt themselves badly in my case (I was going to deposit a lot more money with them) and I will simply live up to the committments I've made and that'll be the end of it. Meanwhile, I would caution people to stay away from Royal Skandia so you aren't subjected to the frustrating ripoffs and pathetic customer service that I've suffered with. |
| 22/03/2004 00020:53:54 | > [anonymous] talk to an IFA |
| | > I am an IFA and due to the terms of the bulletin board I will not tell you who for, but in answer to your question and the replies I have read so far.....The service of Royal Skandia has in my experience (14 years offshore IFA) been excellent! The comments I have read about credit cards leave me dazed. It is expensive for a company - any company - to use a credit card to collect payments for goods and or Financial Services. A seperate sytem has to be put in place to collect the payments etc. It is a choice to pay by credit card and not a requirement. Anyone who tells you to pay by credit card only is incorrect. A financial adviser may be telling you to do so in an effort to get paid his commmission faster as payments by credit card are quicker, but this only counts for the intial - or first - payment. RS have received many awards from the public and IFA's all around the world. They are big, reliable and can be a little expensive. But I would prefer to invest my life savings or retirement fund with a company that invests in its administration and or ways to make my life easier. Speak to a local IFA to get another opinion but in my experience - they are good and I use them personally. |
| 21/12/2007 00013:06:38 | > [anonymous] Was not too impressed |
| | > I agree that it was hard to get the straight dope on any questions I asked. I also thought their attitude in communicating with me was a bit impatient. I had an EIB for a few years 1999 - 2001. I always chalked it up to the fact that I didn't have millions to invest. |
| | [Mk] Hello, I am British living in France for the last five years. I have recently been offered the above programme by a well known intermediary despite the fact that this is not available for French residents. Does anyone have any ideas ? |
| 19/03/2003 00012:12:11 | > [Sigma] Brit living in France |
| | > Bear in mind that you are domiciled outside France and that you may return to the UK at some point or live elsewhere. Almost all providers of offshore products be them savings or singlre premium products are not authorised to sell to French nationals/residents. The license is expensive and takes too long. However there is a grey area in most European countries for expats and third country nationals. In other words many Financial Authorities turn a blind eye to this community as they believe it to be fairly small and as long as the provider does not market to the local population then it is OK - ish. Hansard are one of the most expensive providers in the offshore market and do not even have authorisation in the UK unlike many others.I would suggest that you look at other investments where you are not locked in for a specific period. Possibly offshore OEICs or SICAVS. |
| 19/08/2003 00004:47:14 | > [anonymous] |
| | >
The charges on Hansard are outrages. I am also having a spot of bother getting 2 people their money back-dodgy broker backed by an equally dodgy provider I'm afraid |
| 05/01/2004 00017:30:25 | > [anonymous] Hansard |
| | > The Universal Retirement Programme is probably one of the most expensive savings plans available.
If possible you should look for an alternative low charging savings plan, there are several very good ones out there.
The only other real alternative is to save up your monthly premiums until they reach an acceptable level, say £5000, and make ad hoc deposits into a single premium investment plan.
I use this method and I am very happy with the regular level of returns I am achieving. I also feel very secure as my returns are guaranteed by a major UK Clearing Bank.
I hope this helps. Gabriela
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| | [Tony] I am considering, via an IFA, a GAM offshore investment bond ---- £100K +
Anyone had experience of GAM recent years? |
| 19/08/2003 00004:53:24 | > [anonymous] GAM |
| | >
Have had one of my clients with around 100k in GAM in 3 funds for the past yr (hedgers). Saved my bloody bacon. Limited on the old info though. Funny chaps those GAM compliance, I can sell it, but I am not allowed to have access to the past performance figures on their site- theres logic there somewhere |
| | [anonymous] I am considering a managed account with MoneyTec Account Management LLC, and would appreciate to hear any feedback "good or bad" from anyone who has had experience with them and their pool of traders. |
| | [anonymous] I am British but live and work in Ireland. I own a property in the UK which is on the market. I rent in Ireland and plan to do so for another 12-18 months. Then I hope to buy a property in Ireland.
I expect to realise stg£60-70K from the sale of my property in the UK and want to put this money in some form of long term savings - ideally with a 30 or 60 day notice period.
Am I better to leave the money in the UK (I have a Barclays Offset account, a barclays current account and an Abbey National eSaver account), bring the money to Ireland (I have a current and deposit accounts with AIB) or move it in to an offshore account in the Isle of Man?
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| 12/01/2005 00008:28:11 | > [anonymous] Where's the best place to leave my money? |
| | > It rather depends on what amount of access you require to your funds.
You say you want a long term savings vehicle yet you want 30 -60 days access to the funds.
Us ing the information you have given my suggestion would be for you to split your capital and place one half into a bona fides long term investment vehicle and the other half into a regular high interest 30 - 60 - or 90 day access account with one of your banks.
The return you will receive from your long term savings vehicle is dependant on your attitude to investment risk. i.e. Long Term bank deposit accounts will return to you anything from 3% to 6%. Some Guaranteed investment funds/bonds can return up to 7%. Over 7% becomes a little more speculative but there are however some very good long term (5 years +) products that return 10% and over. |
| | [anonymous] Please can anyone tell me whether they know what the link is between Royal Skandia Isle of Man and Skandia Sweden? Do we need to be concerned about our investment with Royal Skandia Isle of Man? Has anyone had any negative experience with an investment that is called up (hedge fund sold under Skandia's flag)? ANY info or comments will be appreciated. |
| | [anonymous] I am British and have recently become resident in Germany. I am looking to make regular savings into an investment vehicle as well as a lump sum contribution.
I have recently been recommended the Canada Life Offshore Savings Account and the Canada Life Delta. Both of these seem pretty good.
However, I am also aware that Royal Skandia has similar products, ie the Executive Wealthbuilder Account. My initial observation is that the RSK product appears to offer a far more extensive array of funds into which investments can be made.
Does anyone have any experience of these products from these companies? What are the key differences between them? Are there any better products out there for me to consider?
Any guidance would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance. |
| 06/05/2006 00007:35:32 | > [anonymous] Royal Skandia vs Canada Life |
| | > I have very poor experience with Royal Skandia; the service is poor as is the response time. They are very quick however in increasing charges. Read all the small print! |
| | [anonymous] I took out a Scottish Provident Quantum Plan with an IFA 10 years ago and the plan reaches its maturity date next month. Unfortunately the IFA has long gone and I would like to know whether I should cash in the Plan or leave it to continue growing. Recently the returns on the underlying Funds, India, Far EAst xJApan, China Opportunities have been good. I am currently working in the Middle East but plan to retire back to the UK in August 2007. I vaguely remember being told that I could draw a % or the fund tax free each year on return to the UK, is this correct |
| 24/01/2007 00017:19:49 | > [anonymous] |
| | > Not familiar with the "Quantum" Plan ( neither are the people at Abbey !). However, whether it is an offshore or onshore plan, if you are non-resident in the UK for tax purposes, then the plan should be encashed BEFORE you return to the UK, to crystalise tax-free gains. If you do not, then all future withdrawals will be liable to tax on all the gains made throughout.
The 5% allowance refers to a deferred tax arrangement regarded by HMRC as a return of the original capital of an investment bond ( or non-qualifying Life Assurance Plan ) over a 20 year period. |
| | [anonymous] Could anybody give any idea about them? and about PORT platform they are encouraging? |
| | [anonymous] I have a international reserves fund with Zenith, which was Insight and before that Rothchilds. I want to know how this will be taxed if i cash in this investment. I have not had any income from it since it was started. I live in England now. |
| | [anonymous] Hi All,
I have a stash and would like to invest. I had an EIB for a while about 5 years back and got into it mostly because of the cheap offshore funds I could buy in the wrapper, but wound it up to invest in Real Estate. That worked out well which leads me to my current situation a modest 200k USD. I'm heading back to Equities and would like to be a 'Lazy' investor, i.e. invest in index funds. But I think that EFT's offer a better way to invest now so I have been looking around for a broker that will allow me to invest in EFT's offshore. I would like to invest in the same EFT's in different currencies for the usual diversification reasons, and because although I am Canadian, I live a bit like a tax exile. I need to know that whatever currency my investments are in is not going to tank when I want to take the investments out. So I figure investing in 3 or 4 major currencies in the same 4 or 5 EFT's ought to be a good way to go for me.
I checked Internaxx and they are not offering many EFT's. I'd like to go with iShares products, and they don't offer any. So the question is, is there an advantage to using an EIB for investing mostly in EFT's? Alternately do you know of any offshore brokerages offering iShares products in various markets?
Currently I am tax resident in Switzerland, but that could change anytime. I was tax resident in Australia for 8 mo this year and the US before that. I'm looking for work in Dubai so I can earn Tax Free for a while. Lived in Japan for 5 years a while back.
Cheers,
Carl |
| | [anonymous] I need some advice. My wife and I signed up for a pension fund 3 years ago with RSK. We are expats and wanted to start another investment for retirement. We were contacted by a RSK intermediary and signed up with him. We recently inquired about the investment performance and mentioned that we were planning to repatriate back to the US. To my surprise, I was told that my surrender value would be more than 50% of my contributions to date. The fund itself has not earned any interest at this time either. My wife and I were both lead to believe that we had a 24 month committment to making the agreed contribution amount and after that time, we could option out of the pension fund without penalty. This was how the policy was sold to us and the only way we would have signed up because we knew 3 years ago that we would not be overeas for 20 years longer (term of the agreement). Also, there is a letter stating that if we did move back to the US, "The policy holder must notify Royal Skandia if they take up residence in the USA, or a USA territory, and from the date of the residence no further premiums can be paid and any term in the Policy relating to unpaid premimums shall be contrued accordingly." We are in a state of shock over this as we felt a move back to the US would simply cancle the policy terms and we would be refunded the amount with a small cancellation charge, at worse. Do we have any recourse on this matter? Why would RSK accept a policy from a US citizen for a 20 year term with this type of surrender charge? Shame on us for not being more informed, but we feel the intermeidary misrepresented the terms of the policy. No way did we very think we would be overseas for another 20 years...we've already logged 19 years abroad. Thanks for any advice. I feel we are being wrongly treated. BTW, we haven't been able to contact the intermediary for over a year. RSK has offered not information on his whereabouts, or who is handling the policy. We are obviously very upset. |
| | [anonymous] I life off-shore and had a recent meeting with a representative from this company. I have never heard of them before. It looks like they are are intermediary for Royal Skandia. They have a "special offer" on at the moment - commit to us within a week and "our clients will receive an extra allocation special offer of 107%".
I am interested to learn if any of the members here has any experience either with Barclay Carrigan and/or Royal Skandia?
Any feedback would be warmly appreciated.
Many thanks |
| | [anonymous] Hello, I am seeking experience based feedback as I am in the process of moving my UK based final salary pension fund (about GBP 1M) to a QROPS. I have contacted 2 IFAs (deVere & Abbey Financial Solutions) & both recommend Atlantica a Gurnsey based QROPS provider with Giberaltar based Willows trustees and IOM based Royal Scandia as the insurance wraper provider. Does any of this ring any alarm bells? Does anyone have any positive or otherwise experience to share re. the above?
All comments / feedback would be greatly appreciated as I am completely new to all this. |
| 21/12/2009 00020:21:39 | > [anonymous] |
| | > You need to be aware of two things here: initial and ongoing cost (in my view should not be more than 2.5% and 2% ongoing) and the tax implications in your country of residence.
In the US it is complicated and the fact that your pension comes out of the UK and out of the protection of the double tax treaty means that it is likely to be taxed in the US at your marginal rates. On the other hand, if this happens, the you are likely to be able to take distributions tax-free when you vest.
Alternatively, you could consider a QROPS that invests in a US compliant deferred foreign annuity - little pricey but not subject to US tax until you vest. |
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