Clive Barwell, TEP CFP™ Chartered FCSI Mastering Your LEGACY The Essential Guide to Estate Planning Clive, could you start by telling us about your journey into financial planning and why you chose to specialise in the later life market? In common with many from my generation, financial services wasn’t my first choice of career. The family profession is teaching, and I thought I was going to teach biology. However, when that didn’t come to pass, and being an impoverished former student, I asked my Bank Manager for an overdraft whilst looking for a job. Instead of interviewing me for an overdraft, he interviewed me for a job, and the rest, as they say, is history. That’s 53 years ago; I started just seven months after decimalisation. My initial career in the bank was in their Executor & Trustee Department, so Wills, Trusts, Probate, Investments, and Tax Advice. My first client was a widow in her 70s whose late husband had appointed the bank executor. Not only was this lady vulnerable because of her bereavement, she was also vulnerable because of her lack of financial acumen; her husband had dealt with everything secretively, believing he was doing his wife a favour. I realised that I had an aptitude for dealing with older people, and the outstanding training I received from the bank through a 24-year career stood me in good stead to advise on not only investments but succession planning and taxation, particularly Inheritance Tax (still Estate Duty when I started). I have continued in this vein as an Independent Financial Adviser for the last 29 years. Could you briefly explain to our readers what estate planning is and why it’s so crucial? Estate Planning is the process of cascading wealth down through the generations in the most taxefficient and timely manner. This Finance Monthly. Banking & Financial Services 63
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