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Investment philosophy

Our unique approach to wealth management

Our pioneering approach uses behavioural finance – how emotions impact your investment decisions – to help improve your long-term returns.

Over the years, we’ve found that investors consistently struggle to get the sort of investment returns they should. We created a dedicated team of behavioural finance specialists to find out why, and to find out what we could do to improve our clients’ investment decision-making and returns. Our unique investment philosophy approach is the result of their research.

How is our approach different?

We’re often not aware of it, but our emotions – rather than practical reasoning – are the biggest driver of our investment decisions.

The traditional approach to creating an investment portfolio focuses almost entirely on an investor’s attitude to risk and ignores the other emotional factors at work. Our investment philosophy approach measures five different aspects of an investor’s personality that relate to their financial behaviour and decision-making. We believe this enables us to develop more effective individual investment solutions that reduce the negative impact on returns caused by investor emotions.

The three steps of our investment philosophy

Understanding your wealth

We start by using our expertise across our whole business to look at every aspect of your wealth. This allows us to see if you’re over-exposed to risk or missing out on opportunities for better returns. It also helps us to provide the right level of support and services.

Your Financial Personality Assessment

Once we've completed your wealth review, you'll be invited to take our Financial Personality Assessment1. This unique tool measures five key personality attributes in a robust, objective and scientific manner. The results help us understand how you think and feel about wealth and investments, and what influences your decision-making.

Creating your individual portfolio

We use the information from your wealth review and Financial Personality Assessment to create an individual investment portfolio that matches your situation, objectives and personality. We’ll continually monitor and manage your portfolio and adapt it to new opportunities as they arise or when markets change.

1If you’re already a client and would like to take the Financial Personality Assessment, please speak to your Wealth Manager.

Things to consider

The value of investments can fall as well as rise. You may get back less than what you originally invested.

Ready to talk?

To help us put you in touch with the right team and the right services, we have two questions to ask you.

Do you live in the UK?
Do you have £5 million or more in investable assets?
Do you have £500,000 or more in investable assets?

Please choose the following link and provide your details or speak with one of our Wealth Management Client Services team on 0800 279 4893*

*Opening hours: Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 17:00 (excluding UK bank holidays).

Calls to 0800 numbers are free if made from a UK landline and international calls are charged at local rate, mobile costs may vary – please check with your telecoms provider. Calls may be recorded so that we can monitor the quality of our service and for security purposes.

Request a call back

We have a self-directed investment offering which may be of interest

This service does not provide any personal advice. If you're not sure about the suitability of investments for you, seek independent advice.

Remember, investments can fall as well as rise in value – you may get back less than you invest.

Visit Smart Investor

Given your circumstances, our Private Bank team will be able to better help you.

Private Bank

Our Wealth Management services are only for UK residents, so our International Banking team will be able to better help you.

International Banking