Paraplanner Zone: Damian Davies, The Timebank

Is paraplanning becoming a profession? Damian Davies thinks so...

Damian Davies is director of The Timebank, the country’s longest established and fully bespoke outsourced paraplanning service. The company started operations in 2003 and is headquartered in Hereford.

What are the benefits of an outsourced paraplanning service?

The reason why an IFA would want to outsource the paraplanning function is, firstly, because it is cost effective. There is also the added benefit of contracting out a company, as opposed to just an individual – it allows the IFA to use the breadth of skills across the whole company. It is a collegiate, broad approach. In addition, there are no breaks in the service provided that an IFA might suffer if relying on just one individual. It provides, therefore, a consistent and ongoing service.

Our paraplanning business consists of two teams – an administration team and a paraplanning team. The administration team make sure the paraplanners can concentrate on the technical side of things. We have our own software, too, which further differentiates us. So we are completely bespoke. We also provide a full paraplanning service – we don’t just do report writing, but carry out due diligence, data harvesting, and research functions.

How did you become a paraplanner?

I’ve always been in the IFA sector. I joined the industry in 1997 as a trainee IFA and spent years learning the trade. Then I became a paraplanner and in 2002, when I was a paraplanner for a good quality IFA, I came up with this idea for an outsourced paraplanning business. So, I chucked in my job and gave myself nine months to see if the idea would work out – and it did!

What qualifications do your paraplanners have?
All of our paraplanners are chartered or certified. We fully support them if they want to do additional work. Our view of paraplanners is that they need to be either chartered or certified in order to provide a really strong, supporting function.
Paraplanning is becoming a profession. Our paraplanners want to be paraplanners and have chosen it as a career path. I’m not interested in hiring people who want to be advisers. The quality of our work demands people to be of a certain standard and this comes from a combination of education and experience.
 
What is your average day like?
My responsibilities lie on the strategic side – making sure all our clients are happy and maximising the benefit of being linked to us. I meet with new and potential clients, analyse client strategies and work out how we can help them achieve their goals. The majority of my day is spent with IFA clients. Probably 65% of my time is spent with clients and 35% on the business development front.

Which asset classes are proving popular?
Everyone is raging about gold at the moment. But I think it is a bubble which could burst. I worry that a lot of  people will follow the herd and put money in gold, as investors did with property two years ago. Property is subdued at the moment and is at the opposite end of the spectrum from gold.

But what is important is having a good, balanced portfolio. Investors need the right balance to suit their individual circumstances.
In terms of funds, we don’t believe picking funds is our job – we’re not investment managers. When clients tell us their investment strategy we carry out analysis and look at their asset allocation, but we won’t pick the funds. 

What skills does a paraplanner need?
Our three tenets are creativity, simplicity and integrity – these are factors we look for when hiring paraplanners. Organisation and detail are also important.