Meet Harry

My name is Harry. I’ve been a client with Ascenta for about a year now, but I’ve known my personal adviser for more than eight years.

I’m based in Singapore. I’ve been an expat here for 17 years. I think that because of working in a foreign country, you have a fairly unique financial circumstance. With the UK being my home, it’s always been my intent to go back to the UK to retire. So, in a sense, he’s been managing my financial planning while I’m here and leading up to the time I go back to the UK.

I met Paul through the introduction of a mutual friend going back a long time. I started initially doing my due diligence and I got to know him better. I think over time, I’ve invested more and more money with him and the firms he’s worked with. So, it’s been a strong personal relationship, and in a sense, that trust carries through to Ascenta now.

When markets are good, everyone’s happy. It’s when markets are challenging that I would say a good financial adviser comes into his own, and I think that the difference there is being able to say, “Step back, look at the situation, don’t rush to decide.” If you have conviction, there are reasons you’re investing in certain investment funds. Provided nothing has substantially changed, stick with it. And by the same token, when it does make sense to change, change. I’ve always taken the advice and it’s worked well for me.

I feel quite confident about my financial future now, based on my very good experience that’s been developing over the past eight years.

When you have market downturns, there’s an initial reaction to want to go very conservative straightaway, a sense of fear – am I taking too much risk? But I think whenever I’ve been in that situation, we’ve talked about it. At the end of the day, I think this has happened throughout the period we’ve known each other, but I’ve had the conviction to stay the course, and I think that’s been important because I realise now, had I followed my initial reaction, I would have probably been worse off.

Three words to describe my experience with Paul would be: approachable, trustworthy, and having confidence in the future.

I’d be very happy to recommend Paul and Ascenta. In fact, I was speaking to one of my friends this weekend, and I said he should get in touch with Paul. The reason is that I’ve had a relationship for eight years with Paul, moving through to Ascenta, and over that period of time, I’ve been very satisfied with the service and the way that relationship has grown.