Terms of Business

These Terms of Business set out the general terms under which our firm will provide business services to you and the respective duties and responsibilities of both the firm and you in relation to such services. Please ensure that you read these terms thoroughly and if you have any queries, we will be happy to clarify them. If any material changes are made to these terms, we will notify you.

Schofield Financial and Accounting Services Ltd. (C146819) is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland as an insurance intermediary registered under the European Communities (Insurance Mediation) Regulations, 2005; as an Investment Intermediary authorised under the Investment Intermediaries Act, 1995. Copies of our regulatory authorisations are available on request. The Central Bank of Ireland holds registers of regulated firms. You may contact the Central Bank of Ireland on 1890 777 777 or alternatively visit their website at www.centralbank.ie to verify our credentials.

Schofield Financial and Accounting Services Ltd. is subject to the Consumer Protection Code, Minimum Competency Code and Fitness & Probity Standards which offer protection to consumers. These Codes can be found on the Central Bank’s website www.centralbank.ie

Schofield Financial and Accounting Services Ltd. is a member of Brokers Ireland. Our principal business is to provide advice on all aspects of financial planning and to arrange transactions on behalf of clients in relation to life, pensions and investments. A full list of insurers, product producers and lending agencies with whom we deal is available on request.

Investment Intermediary Services and Insurance based Investment Products.

Schofield Financial & Accounting Services Ltd. deal with Life and Pensions on a fair analysis basis i.e. providing services based on a sufficiently large number of contracts and product producers available on the market to enable us to make a recommendation, in accordance with professional criteria, regarding which contract would be adequate to meet your needs. We will help you in the event of a claim during the life of the policies and we will explain to you the various restrictions, conditions and exclusions attached to your policy. However, it is your responsibility to read the policy documents, literature, and brochures to ensure that you understand the nature of the policy cover, particularly in relation to income protection and serious illness policies. Specifically, about income protection policies (PHI permanent health insurance policies) it is our policy to explain to you a) the meaning of disability as defined in the policy; b) the benefits available under the policy; c) the general exclusions that apply to the policy; and d) the reductions applied to the benefit where there are disability payments from other sources.

For a serious illness policy, we will explain clearly to you the restrictions, conditions and general exclusions that attach to that policy.

In accordance with the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), we inform you that when providing advice on insurance-based investment products/investments, we do not assess, in addition to relevant financial risks, relevant sustainability risks as far as this information is available in relation to the products proposed/advised on. This means that we do not assess environmental, social or governance events/conditions that, if they occur, could have a material negative impact on the value of the investment.

When providing advice on insurance-based investment products (IBIPs), or investment advice, we do not consider the impacts of our advice that result in negative effects on sustainability factors (namely environmental, social and employee matters, respect for human rights, anti-corruption and anti-bribery matters), because we can only assess the sustainability characteristics of the investment based on the information provided by the fund managers or investment firms who provide or manage these investments, and this type of comprehensive information would not be provided. A sustainability risk is an environmental, social or governance event or condition that, if it were to occur, could cause a negative and material impact on the value of an investment. Our key product providers and their internal fund managers and external fund managers with whom they are partnered, have developed responsible investment as part of their investment philosophies and sustainability policies. Managers of investments categorise their funds according to the level of Economic and social Governance within the companies of the funds/investments, e.g. article 8 or article 9 funds. We will therefore discuss with you your sustainability objectives and will endeavor to provide suitable recommendations to meet your objectives on the basis of this information we receive from providers.

Under the Consumer Protection Code, Schofield Financial & Accounting Services is obliged to obtain relevant information before giving advice on financial planning services or products. When we complete a fact-find for our files, we may then offer financial advice within our authorisation. If you choose not to provide us with relevant information, you may instruct us to effect a specific policy with a specific Life company by completing and signing an ‘execution only’ instruction. We recommend that you complete a factfind with us so that we can provide you with holistic financial planning services to identify, quantify and prioritse your needs and objectives within your affordability and investment risk profile.

Schofield Financial & Accounting Services Ltd. is remunerated by commission and other payments from product producers or lenders on the completion of business. Where we receive recurring commission, this forms part of the remuneration for initial advice provided. We reserve the right to charge additional fees if the number of hours relating to on-going advice/assistance exceeds 20 hrs.

In certain circumstances, it will be necessary to charge a fee for services provided. For initial advice and quotations, we charge a refundable fee of €200, contingent on business being placed under our agencies. In other circumstances where fees are chargeable, or where you choose to pay in full for our service by fee, we will notify you in writing in advance and agree the scale of fees to be charged if different from fees outlined below.

Additional fees may be payable for complex cases or to reflect value, specialist skills or urgency, our scale of fees for such cases will be notified and agreed before proceeding.

Where advice is requested for PRSAs, the following hourly fees will apply: Advisor fees: €250 per hour.

Additional fees may be payable for complex cases or to reflect value, specialist skills or urgency. We will notify you in advance of providing you with these services, our scale of fees for such cases ranges from a minimum of €150 per hour to a maximum of €350 per hour. If we receive commission from a product provider, this will be offset against the fee which we will charge you. Where the commission is greater than the fee due, the commission will become the amount payable to the intermediary unless an arrangement to the contrary is made.

Cooling-off Period You have the right to withdraw from a protection/pension investment product with a life company, without reason, within 30 days of the start date of a policy. This must be exercised by you in writing to the revelvant life assurance company and no costs can be imposed other than the cost of the premium for the period of cover, i.e. during the period where a benefit may have been claimed.

It is in your best interests that you review, on a regular basis, the products which we have arranged for you. As your circumstances change, your needs will change. You must advise us of those changes and request a review of the relevant policy so that we can ensure that you are provided with up-to-date advice and products best suited to your needs. Failure to contact us in relation to changes in your circumstances or failure to request a review may result in you having insufficient insurance cover and/or inappropriate investments. Our statements of suitability are not on-going without regular review.

It is the policy of our firm to avoid conflicts of interest in providing services to you. However, where an unavoidable conflict of interest arises, we will advise you of this in writing before providing you with any service.

Our firm will exercise its legal rights to receive payments due to it from clients (fees and insurance premiums) for services provided. Without limitation of the generality of the foregoing, the firm will seek reimbursement for all payments made to insurers on behalf of clients where the firm has acted in good faith in renewing a policy of insurance for the client. Product producers may withdraw benefits or cover in the event of default on payments due under policies of insurance or other products arranged for you. We would refer you to policy documents or product terms for the details of such provisions.

Mortgage lenders may seek early repayment of a loan and interest if you default on your repayments. Your home is at risk if you do not maintain your agreed repayments.

We do not hold a client account and only accept cheques payable directly to the life or Investment company. In preference, we request where possible that direct electronic fund transfers are made between you and the relevant life & pensions company or MiFID firm. We advise inputting reference numbers given to you by Schofield Financial and we advise that you text us to confirm the IBAN sent to you by email, to avoid cyber fraud.

Whilst we are happy to receive verbal complaints, it would be preferable that any complaints are made in writing. We will acknowledge your complaint within 5 business days, and we will fully investigate it. We shall investigate the complaint as swiftly as possible, and the complainant will receive an update on the complaint at intervals of not greater than 20 business days starting from the date on which the complaint is made. On completion of our investigation, we will provide you with a written report of the outcome. If you are still dissatisfied with our handling of or response to your complaint, you are entitled to refer the matter to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman: Lincoln House, Loncoln Place, Dublin 2. Phone: 01 5677000; email: info@fspo.ie. A full copy of our complaints procedure is available on request.

Schofield Financial & Accounting Services Ltd. complies with the requirements of the Data Protection Acts, 1988 and 2003 and the General Data Protection Regulation 2018. The data which you provide to us will be held on a computer database and paper files for the purpose of arranging transactions on your behalf. The data will be processed only in ways compatible with the purposes for which it was given. We would also like to keep you informed of mortgage, insurance, investment and any other services provided by us or associated companies with which we have a formal business arrangement; which we think may be of interest to you. We would like to contact you by way of letter, email or telephone call. If you do not wish to receive such marketing information, please tick the box in the Terms of Business acknowledgement letter.

Schofield Financial & Accounting Services Ltd. Is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We wish to be transparent on how we process your data and show you that we are accountable with the GDPR in relation to not only processing your data but ensuring you understand your rights as a client. The data will only be processed in ways compatible with the purposes for which it was given and as outlined in our Data Privacy Notice. This notice is easily accessible on our website, www.schofield.ie, and can be posted or emailed to you on request. Please contact us at orla@schofield.ie if you have any concerns about your personal data.

We are members of the Investor Compensation Scheme operated by the Investor Compensation Scheme. The Investor Compensation Act, 1998 provides for the establishment of a compensation scheme and the payment, in certain circumstances, of compensation to certain clients (known as eligible investors) of authorised investment firms, as defined in that Act. The Investor Compensation Company Ltd. (ICCL) was established under the 1998 Act to operate such a compensation scheme and our firm is a member of this scheme. Compensation may be payable where money or investment instruments owed or belonging to clients and held, administered or managed by the firm cannot be returned to those clients for the time being and where there is no reasonably foreseeable opportunity of the firm being able to do so.

A right to compensation will arise only: 1) If the client is an eligible investor as defined in the Act; and 2) If it transpires that the firm is not able to return client money or investment instruments owned or belonging to the clients of the firm; and 3) To the extent that the client’s loss is recognised for the purposes of the Act. Where an entitlement to compensation is established, the compensation payable will be the lesser of: 90% of the amount of the client’s loss which is recognised for the purposes of the Investor Compensation Act, 1998; or, Compensation of up to €20,000. For further information, contact the Investor Compensation Company Ltd. at (01) 224 4955.

We are also members of the Brokers Ireland Compensation Fund. Subject to the rules of the scheme, the liabilities of its members firms up to a maximum of €100,000 per client (or €250,000 in aggregate) may be discharged by the fund on its behalf if the member firm is unable to do so, where the above detailed Investor Compensation Scheme has failed to adequately compensate any client of the member. Further details are available on request.