I recently moved from Paris to Geneva to work with an international organization here and have been approached by a representative of a company which claims to be the world's largest independent offshore advisory company and which opened a branch here not too long ago. Although they cold-called me at work and didn't explain how they got my number (which gave me pause for thought... is that even legal here?), I agreed to meet their advisor, as I need to sort out my finances and thought I might as well start with this. The advisor seemed knowledgeable/competent/straightforward, etc. and was pretty thorough with his questions about my financial background and marital/inheritence status, but since I am not financially knowledgeable and have no experience of dealing with advisors, I have no way of telling how reliable any subsequent advice from the company might be. Nor do I know if they are regulated and if their advice is in any way guaranteed. The advisor said he had 20 years experience as a financial advisor and mentioned the name of a large firm with which he said he'd been associated, but I have no way of telling whether this is true. I've checked the company's website (for some reason, they don't have any written material about themselves), and there is a disclaimer on the first page telling you that they bear no legal responsibility for any information contained in the website. There are quite a lot of references to them on the internet, and they seem to have branches in a lot of places.
A couple of things I've been wondering about are: (1) can such a big company really be independent, and (2) if an "independent financial advisor" is an actual profession in the UK requiring specific qualifications, do this company's advisors have these qualifications?
Does anyone know how to tell whether the company/advisor is reliable?
