- It's never too late (Non-Habitual Residence (NHR)) - Published Oct 2018 by Raoul Ruiz Martinez
- Are You on Top of GDPR? - Published May 2018 by Raoul Ruiz Martinez
- Financial Fitness - Published Jan 2018 by Raoul Ruiz Martinez
- Six Tough Questions You Need to Ask - Published in Nov 2017 by Raoul Ruiz Martinez
- Plan for a Successful Retirement - Published Oct 2017 by Raoul Ruiz Martinez
- 5-year Plan, 10-year Plan, 30-Year Plan. Do you have yours? - Published August 2017 by Raoul Ruiz Martinez
- The Will Bank Opportunity by John L Douglas - Published in The Journal of the Law Society of Scotland 17th July 2017
- August 2017 - HMRC & Offshore Accounts for UK Residents
- A New Year, A New Start…. January 2017
- Inheritance Tax (IHT) Planning (Part 3) - Published November 2016
- Planning for a Better Future? Forget Trusts. Think Family Investment Companies! - Published Nov 16
- Inheritance Tax Planning (Part 2) - Published August 2016
- BREXIT: What do we know as investors and what are the unknowns? Published in July 2016
- Inheritance Tax Planning (Part 1) - Published in June 2016
- Why is tidy a key word in financial planning? Published May 2016
- The Future of International Financial Planning - Published in March 2016
- Volatility: Global Financial Markets and Tax - Published Feburary 2016
- Financial Information Sharing for 2016 - Published December 2015
Summary of the 2015 Pension Flexibility - Published 5th May 2015
Offshore bonds get £5k tax free savings boost - Published 29th April 2015
How your peers invest clients’ money: Finesco Financial Services Ltd - Published in Professional Advisor 25th March 2015
- TRUSTS : Good Reasons to Never Make a Change - Published March 2015
- Saving....for Ourselves - Today's children will need A £2.4m pension pot.
- Cash is King - Article Published 25th July 2013
- Saving – Don’t Put Off Till Tomorrow What You Can Do Today - Article Published 23rd May 2013
HMRC Statutory Residence Test - 6th April 2013
- QNUPS Article Published 23rd March 2013
- Old New Year - Article Published 24th January 2013
- Retirement and Savings – The Facts on Inflation published November 2012
- Finesco Prsentation on New Pension Rules - A New Generation Begins
HMRC Pension Tax Relief Changes
- Emergency Budget:
- Budget Day: 22 June 2010
- Capital Gains Tax Angles
- Long Term Care
- QROPS: Transferring UK Pensions Overseas
- The State of Pensions
- ISA Changes Affecting You
A mix of policies can be used to protect against a range of eventualities:. Some can be combined with investment elements. Using the right combination makes them more cost-effective.
Are You on Top of GDPR? - Published May 2018 by Raoul Ruiz Martinez
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was approved by the EU Parliament on 14th April 2016. The enforcement date is the 25th May 2018 which means that GDPR must be adopted by every firm that handles personal data by 25th May 2018.
A business that holds details of past, present or potential clients, will need to ensure that it is operating in a manner compliant with the GDPR, or those organisations in non/compliance may face heavy fines of 4% of their global turnover or €20 million, whichever is the higher. This is EU wide regulation in which the UK also played a major role in writing the legislation, designed to harmonise data privacy laws across Europe and the rest of the world.
The rules emphasise data security should be appropriate and adequate, so it’s up to individual firms to decide what is adequate for their business based on the data they hold, how it is processed and industry standards.
It is easy to assume GDPR is just about protecting people from unsolicited marketing and guarding against identity theft. However, it is far broader than that. Big data is big business. There are companies collecting, storing and using vast amounts of highly personal data about every aspect of our lives.
As we have seen very recently, the way Facebook groups and segments its users provides a powerful set of advertising tools with which to target its 2 billion users (according to www.statista.com). This example alone shows how times have moved on since the EU data protection legislation bestowed in the Data Protection Directive of 1995.
We now know some airlines manipulate the price of flights based on how often you visit their page. The cookie they store in your browser tells them to increase the price each time you visit the page to pressure you into buying. Clear your cookies in your browser settings and the price will drop down again. In fact, according to the European Commission, researchers in Spain found that when shopping with artificially created online profiles, prices varied depending on the wealth of the person shopping. The wealthiest online shoppers were offered the same set of headphones at around four times the price of the least wealthy. Airline tickets varied by 166 per cent. This is personalised pricing by stealth.
The Guardian newspaper reported that Experian in the UK, which holds data on 44 million UK citizens, was hacked in 2015, bringing international attention to the scale of security breaches. Nonetheless, protecting data has always been a key aspect of regulation. The ways in which data is processed, particularly profiling and targeting for sales and marketing purposes, has radically changed since the growth of the internet in the mid-1990s. GDPR attempt to acknowledge those changes.
Whether you are a firm or you are an individual client, you must be on top of your GDPR and knowledge of what your rights are. The fines for firms can quite easily bring their business to a close and individuals must take more seriously the scope and reach of their enquiries for new products and services. Make sure your adviser has the integrity of their business and your interests set out comfortably within the principles laid out by the GDPR.
This article is intended to provide a general review of certain topics and its purpose is to inform but NOT to recommend or support any specific course of action.
Raoul Ruiz Martinez is a resident and independent consultant for Finesco Financial Services Ltd., Glasgow and advises clients on private financial matters in both the UK and throughout Europe under the MiFID regulation. Finesco Financial Services Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Some of the services provided are not regulated by the FCA because they are not included within the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.
Raoul has a weekly radio feature (Raoul’s Rant) on the Owen Gee Solid Gold Sunday Morning Show as well as the Money Minute programme on the weekly Si Frater Breakfast Show, both on KissFM Portugal.