Fiduciary: from Latin fides, meaning “faith”, and fiducia, meaning “trust” is a legal or ethical relationship of confidence or trust regarding the management of money or property between two or more parties , most commonly a fiduciary and a principal. Suffice to say, a fiduciary duty is the highest standard of care.
While many individuals hold themselves out to be financial professionals - who is looking out for your family's best interests? Is the individual that you are dealing with merely having to meet a suitability requirement or is that person in a fiduciary relationship with you? While many investors do not understand the subtle difference, the difference is vast.
In much of the financial industry, professionals such as investment advisors, brokers, insurance agents and financial planners are required to base their recommendations on merely being suitable (using their knowledge of their client) as opposed to being the best option for the client. These guidelines can be open to abuse as the advisor may direct the client to a more expensive investment option where the commission (or in many cases the trailer fee) is higher than another yet less expensive „suitable‟ investment.
As a registered Portfolio Manager, Northland Wealth Management acts in a fiduciary capacity for our clients and thus, places your interests, above our own. This means that:
we have no incentive to sell nor recommend any product as we do not take commissions from any investment product providers;
we provide clients with annual fee reports with complete transparency on the fees we charge;
we employ the use of third-party custodians for our clients‟ assets at a major custodian such as TD Waterhouse Institutional Services to ensure the security of our clients‟ assets.
Northland has been built with a purpose—to be aligned with families and serve their individual needs and objectives.