Adviser quits private client bank for life planning

Former private banker Michael Fairweather has established his own life planning firm, Real Life Financial Planning.

Fairweather resigned from his job at Duncan Lawrie Private Bank after attending a two-day course with the Kinder Institute of Life Planning. Edinburgh-based Fairweather said his fee-only business already had seven clients with assets of more than £1 million after launching as an appointed representative of Sesame earlier this year.

‘I found George Kinder from my own research and had to convince the bank to let me take the time off; they weren’t too enthusiastic,’ said Fairweather. ‘After I went to Kinder’s two-day course, I took a year off travelling with my then fiancé as a result of the life planning I received. We decided we had had enough of London and that we would move to Edinburgh.

‘After I settled in, I signed up for the Kinder five-day course in June and now I am going through the six-month mentorship programme to become a registered life planner.’ Fairweather, who is a chartered and certified financial planner, worked with Re-Financial Planning, the IFA arm of Glazers Chartered Accountants, before he joined Duncan Lawrie.

‘[Real Life Financial Planning] is just me at the moment but I plan to grow and employ some more staff. I have a 25-year view,’ said Fairweather. He believes Real Life will be the first business to bring life planning to the Scottish capital. ‘No-one else is doing this in Edinburgh, so it’s nice to be a pioneer,’ he said.

Fairweather’s partner on the Kinder course was adviser Kevin Chalk. Chalk now also plans to work as a life planner by remodelling his Rotherham-based firm, Provest Financial Management, into a life planning business.