Martin Bamford

IFA firm Informed Choice has received the Chartered Insurance Institute's (CII) Chartered Financial Planners status.

I spent an enjoyable hour yesterday afternoon blitzing through a few piles of paperwork. This has become an annual ritual for me in the week before I leave to go on holiday. It is amazing how satisfying it is to decimate stacks of brochures, letters and...

After watching parts of 'The Human Footprint' documentary on Channel 4 the other evening I visited their website to calculate my own human footprint.

Mass marketing is dead. If I am at the receiving end of a piece of marketing or advertising I can tune it out very effectively, unless it is aimed directly at me and very specifically addresses my needs or wants. Only niche marketing works anymore because...

There is a myth perpetuated in financial services that ‘clients will not pay fees'. My experience is very different. Where it is possible to articulate value to a client they will of course pay fees for financial advice. I do concede that commission offsetting...

During the course of this year I've been giving a lot of thought to technology. Our own experiences of technology within Informed Choice have meant I have sat through hours of presentations, read various books on the subject and had conversations with...

My suspicions about the fate of the company that supplies our CRM system have been confirmed after a quick read of their last accounts (for the bargain price of £1 from the Companies House website).

In response to Martin's Bamford's blog -   The public is very confused - Adrian Kidd from Mintzone, London, says:

The public is very confused about independent financial advice. But then again, so is the regulator so let me explain.

A new internet-based service has been launched which is designed to help consumers find a financial adviser in their region.