Many expatriate financial planners have left Australia in order to directly service other Australians overseas or to advise overseas residents coming to Australia.
Other planners remain in the country to service expatriate Australians who are offshore, while still others look after the wealthy migrants and expatriates that come here from the United States, United Kingdom and Asia.
They are all eager to tap into the big money in the well-paid expatriate community.
Steve Douglas, managing director of Singapore-based Australasian Taxation Services, wrote a book about it titled Aussie Expats, the Luckiest People on Earth.
Douglas says the Australian Immigration Department has released figures showing there are 1 million Australian expats, with about 80,000 people leaving the country every year and about the same number returning each year. There are about 20,000 Australians working in Hong Kong, 15,000 in Singapore and in Dubai, which is growing fast, there are also about 15,000 people.
"Dubai is the new emerging market for expats," Douglas says.
Financial planners like these clients because they earn good money, which often means they do follow through on advice, he says. The average expat earns net income of US$6000-10,000 a month, with their accommodation already factored into that sum, he says.
At the same time, they are in great need of financial advice, since many of them have left the country as part of a bid to sort out their finances, he says.
"Many expats leave Australia with $20,000 to $30,000 in private debt and that is not including a mortgage because only half have property," he says.
All the planners interviewed for this article agree one of the main bonuses of working with these clients is that they have interesting situations compared to most people.
Their offshore positions cause a greater degree of complication in taxes and investment opportunities than most people have working and living in their home country.
"There is a great variety of professionals working as expats," Douglas says.
"Doctors, money markets, core management roles. It's a very broad sweeping. There wouldn't be a concentration in one area."
They are also typically younger people aged 30-45 years in the phase of income accumulation.
One of the drawbacks of working in this area, though, is that when a financial planner wants to work overseas to service offshore clients, they do often need to get new qualifications based on the requirements of that country. This can result in up to two years of exams based on learning the systems of a whole new bureaucracy.
PROFILES
Steve Douglas, managing director of Singapore based Australasian Taxation Services
Douglas has been educating expatriates about their finances since he moved to Singapore 12 years ago from his former home in Perth.
In fact, on November 14, 2006, he will host in New York The Aussie Expat - Financial Planning Seminar for Australians working in the US.
His firm, Australasian Taxation Services, is a tax planning group that works directly with financial planners servicing Australian expats out of offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai and London. The group also services clients in the US through regular visits.
"I do a lot of public speaking. The level of knowledge and education among expats tends to be very poor. There are lots of myths. The average expat is well skilled in their role but their financial considerations are never high on the agenda," Douglas says.
"These talks are about the reality of expat life. We like to remind people some of the reasons they came overseas. Most people's primary motivation for working overseas is to earn more and save money. Most people forget and become spenders."
When he first started in Singapore, the group focused on working with offshore investors into Australia. Then he opened an office in Hong Kong where almost 90 per cent of the clients were expatriates, allowing the group to build a lot of experience in this area over the next few years. Now the company has around 1000 expat clients around the world, which makes up about a third to a half of the total client base.
As the group is a tax planning firm offering advice on investing in Australia, there is no need for any other qualifications than those required by Australian accounting regulations.
Douglas says he will not go back to Australia. He says working overseas is a lot more rewarding because his clients follow his advice.
"The modern day expat is more committed to the future than they ever have been. They have determination to implement your advice," he says.
He adds the key to success in working with offshore clients is good service and catering for the client's desires.
"Working with expats, you need to be far more obliging to the long-term wish to acquire a residence and be debt free on that residence. You have to change the way you deal with investors. Look at things like allowing the client to buy property, because it is a very strong desire. It is more intense in Australians than most other people," he says.
Michelle Kelly, Australian Financial Services London general manager
Kelly has 11 years' experience working in the financial services industry in Australia. She holds a Diploma of Financial Planning from Deakin University and has completed the UK Financial Planning Certificate through the Chartered
Insurance Institute.
She is authorised by the Financial Services Authority to give advice in the UK as well as by ASIC through Australian Financial Services (AFS). She studied via correspondence in Australia prior to moving to London to set-up AFS London.
Prior to setting up AFS London, Kelly was working with AFS North Sydney where they had five successful years of experience with UK citizens migrating to Australia. She says the North Sydney group decided to set up the London office on the basis that it would be more beneficial for the client to work with a financial planner and get their finances thoroughly assessed prior to departing from the UK.
She says she likes the way she can add value for UK clients planning their move to Australia.
"I had been dealing with a lot of UK clients and they have interesting situations in terms of taxation and worldwide income. People don't realise they have financial issues but if they set themselves up before they move they can save a lot of money in tax," she says.
AFS London was started 15 months ago as part of an initiative by AFS North Sydney, headed by Peter Conacher. Conacher and staff had been attending UK migration shows for about five years in order to attract UK citizens looking to move to Australia as expatriates or migrants.
Conacher says this step to set up an office offshore included many difficulties resulting from the administration and bureaucracy differences between the UK compared to Australia.
"It is hard for anyone to move interstate, let alone overseas. It takes a lot of time, money and a big heart. You get a lot of kicks from the bureaucracy in the UK. Just opening bank accounts for a business takes months. Just getting company structures up and running takes time. Here you get it up and running in days.
Getting a business registered in the UK took three months," he says.
The other main difficulty has been the exchange rate. Setting up a business in the UK means start-up costs need to be covered in the pound, which is about 2.5 times stronger than the Australian dollar.
"You do it because once you are earning pounds it is great when you have a really successful client who moves to Australia or wants to invest in markets here," Conacher says.
"We are not after a fitter and turner, we are shooting for a target market in the UK of people who are moving to Australia with high incomes and/or assets. Some of those people have paid off their house. These are doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, et cetera. If they have 400,000 to 500,000 pounds or 1 million pounds to invest, that is worth 2.5 times that amount in Australian dollars."
Therefore, he says starting an offshore practice requires tenacity on the part of the person taking on the job and financial backing from a solid firm. In addition, a successful planner needs to be able to network in a new country.
"In the UK we source our clients by way of attending specific target market recruitment and/or migration shows, advertising in key target market publications, accountants' and lawyers' referrals, financial planning networks and personal referrals," he says.
Bernard Maughan, CEO in Singapore of Professional Investment Advisory Services (owned by Australian-based planning firm Professional Investment Services)
Professional Investment Services (PIS) has offices in Canada, Singapore, Malaysia and New Zealand.
The group is also in the process of buying Howarth Financial Services in Hong Kong from accounting firm Howarth. PIS already has a few representatives in Hong Kong.
PIS also has recently been given permission to operate in China. Senior executives from the Australian-based company are currently visiting China to clarify exactly what the regulators have given them permission to do there.
It is no wonder PIS is making such a big move into Asia, since Cerulli Associates says funds under management in the Asian region is $2.9 trillion and is expected to exceed that of Europe and America in the next decade.
Maughan saw his move to Singapore as a way to step into a bigger role as chief executive from his Australian position as a business development manager. In his previous role at PIS, he introduced insurance to the Australian group. He then moved from PIS in Australia to head up the Singapore operations in August 2003. Since then, the Singaporean business has grown from 110 advisers to 220 advisers.
"PIS could see that the legislative changes in Singapore with the introduction of the Financial Advisers Act [Singapore FAA enacted 2001] would suite our model of business," Maughan says.
The Singapore group is split into two parts, with the bulk of advisers servicing Singaporean clients and nine advisers looking after expatriate clients.
However, the expat advisers bring in a "significant proportion" of the Singaporean revenue, according to Maughan. There is one adviser in Singapore, Donald Soo, with a licence to operate in Australia and Singapore. The rest of the team are Singapore-licensed advisers.
Maughan says that when the business was being set up he tended to listen to the locals and the fund managers who said business needed to be done the "Singaporean way" if it was to work in the new market. But that changed as he became more experienced.
"We found that business is business all over the world and the way we work in Australia can be transported. Our business has become about helping the Singaporean advisers to transition into the big wide universe of financial planning out of the restricted role of just being a sales person," he says.
Trent Collins, partner at Godfrey Pembroke Financial Consultants in Doncaster, Victoria
Collins is 30 and has about six years' experience as a planner. He has an interest in working with expatriate clients, although he does not plan to move overseas.
About 5-10 per cent of Collins' existing clients are working and living overseas. He advises expatriate Australians working in Hong Kong, Dubai and the US. He says they mostly became clients before they moved overseas.
"A lot of them are engineers. There are a lot of good job opportunities for engineers overseas," Collins says.
Servicing clients offshore is not that different to working with them in Australia, he says. However, it does take a little more time to get most things done.
"With IT and the Internet, there's not a lot of difference," Collins says. However, he really enjoys working with expatriate clients because they have interesting situations, and they are younger than many other clients.
"They are a similar age group to myself and they're all wealth accumulates," he says.
Success with these clients comes through understanding the goals and objectives of the
client, he says.
"You need to explain to them the consequences of time frame. These kind of considerations can impact on whether they become a resident or remain non-resident in the countries where they go to work," he says.
