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Cardinal Point Wealth Management

Your Cross-Border Financial Advisor

Terry Ritchie of Cardinal Point Wealth Management on MDRT

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Cardinal Point’s Vice President Terry Ritchie was recently featured on the MDRT website in an article about common cross-border financial planning mistakes advisors tend to make. The piece emphasized the importance of targeted financial planning for clients moving to another country.

A few highlights:

  • Citizens who live or work abroad are plentiful, representing a large potential market for financial planners. However, the process is intricate and must consider different immigration income and estate tax rules, currency fluctuations, and a variety of other regulatory hurdles. If not adequately addressed, these factors could expose advisors to potential liability and clients to unexpected financial losses.
  • Advisors should consult with immigration or estate planning counsel or attorneys when working with clients planning cross border moves.
  • Depending on the types of accounts a client has, there may be restrictions on management and administration of which advisors need to be aware. There may also be regulatory hurdles imposed by federal, state, or provincial authorities. Failure to avoid errors in this area can have dire consequences.
  • Wholesale foreign exchange providers are often a better choice than traditional retail banks for currency exchange. The savings for clients can be significant, as most of these firms will beat the retail rate.

Get all the details when you read the entire article here.

Moving and Financial Planning

Terry Ritchie in The Globe and Mail: Foreign Exchange Insights

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Terry Ritchie gives his insights and tips when dealing with foreign exchange options.

From the Globe and Mail article:

“I’m not a big fan of the banks,” said Terry Ritchie, a financial adviser who works both sides of the Canada-U.S. border. “They’re great for convenience. But if you can take the time and wait a day or two, there are better bets.”

Read the article here

Terry Ritchie featured in The Insurance & Investment Journal article, Managing Cross-Border Clients

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From the Insurance & Investment Journal article:

Managing cross-border clients is a challenging area for advisors that requires thorough knowledge on how to handle life insurance, investments, taxes and pensions while respecting two countries’ rules and regulations.

The Insurance and Investment Journal spoke to U.S-Canada cross-border expert Terry Ritchie, a director at Cardinal Point Wealth Management, who’s specialized in the field for more than 25 years to find some answers. He says if you don’t have knowledge or experience it is very easy to mess things up for your client.

Read the article here

Estate Disputes: Strategies for Keeping the Peace

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Estate planning issues can create family discord, especially in cases in which there is a sizable inheritance and heirs have disparate circumstances and competing interests.

“You seem to know people,” says Terry Ritchie, director of cross border wealth services with Cardinal Point Capital Management Inc. in Calgary, “but when someone dies and there’s money [involved], their real colours come through.”

Managing delicate family dynamics can be challenging, Ritchie adds, but there is much you can do as a financial advisor to prevent and minimize potential conflict. Ritchie offers the following advice for helping clients keep family peace before and during a wealth transfer:

Encourage open dialogue

Ritchie recommends hosting a family meeting that includes the client and all the beneficiaries of the estate as part of the estate planning process. Heirs who are unable to attend in person can connect by speaker phone or online. The conversation should cover how the wealth transfer will unfold and issues unique to that case that might arise.

As the financial advisor, you are in a position to address family members’ questions about the ins and outs of the wealth transfer. For example, you can field questions that may arise regarding taxes, which can complicate the process, especially if there are cross-border tax issues.

But the level of disclosure you get into — such as the client’s net worth and the distribution of assets — is your client’s call. Ritchie lets his clients decide whether it makes sense for him, as the advisor, to communicate with the family. Once he has the approval to engage the family, he is careful to treat the children equally and be up-front about how he’s helping their parents.

Improve your client knowledge

Expand the scope of your discovery process to include getting to know your clients’ family dynamics. Ritchie usually holds an in-depth conversation with clients about how their children are faring, asking if there are any issues he should be aware of that could complicate the wealth transfer.

For example, Ritchie becomes attuned to the marital status and financial circumstances of his clients’ children, which helps him get a better sense of their motivations. By becoming familiar with your clients’ children, you create an opportunity to continue a relationship with that generation.

“I have a pretty good understanding of the cast of characters I might be dealing with in the future,” Ritchie says. “Many advisors don’t go that deep.”

Take the heat

If your client feels caught in the middle of an intractable sibling rivalry over the inheritance, Ritchie says, help ease the stress by acting as an intermediary.

He has faced situations in which clients’ children want to dictate the terms of how and when the assets will be distributed. In one case, one sibling felt that the wealth was being divided unfairly, because others were receiving a larger portion to include their children.

In such cases, Ritchie will take on the role of “bad cop,” enforcing the client’s expressed wishes and explaining the reasons behind the decision.

When the children prove relentless in pushing for their preferences, he often tells his clients: “Don’t be the bad guy, let me be the bad guy.”