What are YPA’s principal adviser qualifications?

Michael Radalj is a chartered accountant specialising in financial planning. He holds a Bachelor of Business Degree with a Major in Accounting and a Finance sub-major. He also has a Graduate Diploma in Financial Planning.

What is YPA’s experience as a Financial Adviser?

Michael has been working as a financial adviser since 2002 and has been managing his own financial planning business for over 20 years now.

With extensive experience as a small business consultant, working in London and Australia advising small businesses, Michael helps business owners to improve profitability and increase in value.

Is YPA a member of any industry associations or professional bodies?

Michael is a member of the Chartered Accountants of Australia and New Zealand. He is also a member of the Profession of Independent Financial Advisers (PIFA).

How much does my initial meeting cost?

Your initial meeting is free. No cost is incurred just to simply meet with us. This is a way for us to learn as much as we can about your circumstances and answer queries about what we do and how we can benefit you.

What is our meeting process?

After your initial meeting we provide a proposal to present you with a Statement of Advice (SOA). If we are to provide financial advice we must by law present you an SOA. If you decide to go ahead with our proposal, which will detail the costs of presentation and implementation of your SOA, it is only then that you will be committed to any fee for service.

How do I prepare for the first meeting?

To understand how you think about money, your concerns, goals and what your financial circumstances are, we ask you to complete a questionnaire which we provide for you via email. Ideally you will send this to us prior to your initial meeting.

How are my investments monitored and how does YPA deliver information about my portfolio?

For the far majority of investments, we are tracking their returns on an ongoing basis. Even when we can’t get information, we ask the client for information on a periodic basis so we can track and report all investments and be able to compare them against other benchmarks. We do this on an ongoing basis for our ongoing clients.

Does YPA get paid for selling a product to me? (or any gifts or bonuses?)

As we are independent, we do not receive or keep any income from any product. However, there are circumstances where we can’t stop a payment of commission, in which case, we isolate funds in a separate bank account and on a periodic basis, we pay it either to the client or to a charity. We receive no financial benefit from any product that is being recommended to any client.

Is YPA licensed with ASIC?

Your Private Advisers operates under a separate licensee Independent Financial Advisers Australia (IFA). IFA has its own AFSL (Australian Financial Services Licence) issued by ASIC.

How do we charge for services?

We charge a fee for service basis only. Generally speaking, we charge a flat fee whether that is for the production of one-off transaction type advice as represented by the Statement of Advice or for ongoing services which is agreed on a flat fee basis for each client.

Our fee has a fairly limited range, however, for larger portfolios, we tend to charge more due to the additional risk that we are placed under when making advice.

How often will I need advice reviewed by YPA?

We communicate with clients twice a year and provide additional investment advice as and when markets or opportunities dictate.  However, it is a minimum of once per year if not twice depending on the client circumstances and portfolio.