How we get paid and are remunerated
As a Financial Planning business, we act on your behalf when dealing with and placing business with insurers and lenders.
Pursuant to provision 4.58A of the Central Bank of Ireland’s September 2019 Addendum to the Consumer Protection Code, all intermediaries, must make available in their public offices, or on their website if they have one, a summary of the details of all arrangements for any fee, commission, other reward or remuneration provided to the intermediary which it has agreed with its product producers.
How we get paid
Remuneration is the payment earned by the intermediary for work undertaken on behalf of both the provider and the consumer. The amount of remuneration is generally directly related to the value of the products provided.
Commission
Commission is payment that may be earned by an intermediary for work undertaken for both provider and consumer.
There are different types of remuneration and different commission models:
Single commission model: Where payment is made to the intermediary shortly after the sale is completed and is based on a percentage of the premium paid/amount invested/amount borrowed.
Trail/Renewal commission model: Further payments at intervals are paid throughout the life span of the product. From our experience our clients value our ongoing advice.
Indemnity Commission: Indemnity commission is the term used to describe a commission payment made before the commission is deemed to be ‘earned’. Indemnity commission may be subject to a clawback (see below) if the consumer lapses or cancels the product before the commission is deemed to be earned.
Other forms of indemnity commission are advances of commission for future sales granted to intermediaries in order to assist with set up costs or business development.
Life Assurance/Investments/Pension Products
For Life Assurance products commission is divided into initial commission and renewal commission (related to premium), fund based or trail (relating to accumulated fund).
Trail commission, bullet commission, fund based, flat commission or renewal commission are all terms used for ongoing payments. Where an investment fund is being built up though an insurance-based investment product or a pension product, the increments may be based on a percentage of the value of the fund or the annual premium. For a single premium/lump sum product, the increment is generally based on the value of the fund.
Life Assurance products are typically individual protection policies and Investment/Pension products would be either single or regular contribution policies. Examples of products include Life Protection, Regular Premium Life Assurance Investments, Single Premium (lump sum) Insurance-based Investments, and Single Premium Pensions.
Credit Products/Mortgages
Commission is paid to us for arranging a mortgage for consumers. The single, or standard, commission model is the most common commission model applied to the sale of mortgage products by mortgage credit intermediaries (Mortgage Broker).
Clawback
Clawback is an obligation on the intermediary to repay unearned commission. Commission can be paid directly after a contract is concluded but is not deemed to be ‘earned’ until after a specified period of time. If the consumer cancels or withdraws from the financial product within the specified time, the intermediary must return commission to the product producer.
Fees
Financial Architects specifically charge fees to arrange mortgages. The fee is determined by the loan amount involved and the transaction type. We charge a minimum of €3,000, so if the lender pays us 1% of a loan amount of €285,000 which is €2,850, our charge to you is €150.
First time buyer mortgage €295
Second time buyer mortgage €295
Investor mortgage €295
Remortgage €295
Self Build mortgage €995
Please note if the loan amount is less than €250,000 the fee can increase.
We do not have a preferred provider for Pensions, investments, mortgages, or Insurance.
Other Fees, Administrative Costs/ Non-Monetary Benefits
Financial Architects get some assistance on marketing advice from some of the insurers but we do not receive any payments.
Click on a link below to access a list of the providers that our firm deals with for insurance and pensions.
Click on a link below to access the list of lenders we deal with and the renumeration we receive from each mortgage provider.
Please note we get paid 1% on any mortgage we arrange from the lender and this has no impact on the mortgage rate charged to you. A reducing payment is clawed back if the loan is moved away from them within the first 3 years.