St Albans-headquartered Lonsdale Services has bolstered its advisory team by taking on a trainee and helping him gain his qualifications.
Daniel Stansall, 35, said after the birth of his second child, he decided to leave his 11-hours-a-day City job trading financial derivatives and retrain as an IFA.
In 2014, he joined Lonsdale and was shadowing Simon Prestcote, chartered wealth manager in the Barnet office, as a trainee, as part of Lonsdale Services’ IFA training scheme.
He said: “The change to independent financial advice was a big one, but from my first day I was encouraged to be actively involved in the financial advice process.
“I met clients and sat in on client meetings, understanding investment decisions and providing research on equity and bond funds, shares and pension products as appropriate.
“I was fortunate to be given a healthy amount of study time each week so I could gain my DipPFS qualification as quickly as possible. I set myself the goal of passing one exam a month and I stuck to that schedule.”
According to Mr Stansall, the combination of studying and on-the-job training helped reinforce everything he learned.
In summer 2015 he gained the certificate in Securities Advice and Dealing, and has recently passed the new RO8 exam, which was designed to help consolidate and test knowledge of the recent pension reforms following the pension changes announced in 2015.
Simon Hawker, managing director for Lonsdale Services, said: ‘Lonsdale Services benefit from working with colleagues from different career backgrounds as trainee Financial Advisers as they bring different skills and experience to our financial advice business.’
Background Box
Lonsdale Services was founded in 2003.
It has 12 qualified advisers, and a further 14 support staff in the main St Albans office and other regional offices.
In October 2014, the firm was called by Financial Adviser’s mystery shopper for financial advice and scored 32 out of 35 points.
