Here are a selection of commonly-asked questions. Click on any question or scroll down to review them all:

• Which Services Do You Offer?
• What Makes You Different?
• Why Should I Plan My Finances?
• Do I Have Enough Money To Invest Offshore?
• What Does “Offshore” Mean?
• Can I Trust You With My Money
• Can I Protect My Capital?
• Isn't It Better To Use A Bank?
• Should I Buy Property?
• Do I Need Insurance?
• What If I Leave Town?
• How Do You Make Money?
• Can I Do It All Myself?
• How Do I Proceed?

Sinclair James is a Manila-based company that since 1996 has provided independent financial advice to expatriates. We have hundreds of clients in many countries from a wide range of nationalities and professions.

Which Services Do You Offer?

Sinclair James offers a wide selection of investment and insurance products for expatriates and assist foreign-owned businesses design their employee benefit packages.

Our independence means that we can impartially select the most suitable products from the world’s leading international financial companies.

Our local experience means that we can provide friendly advice on a wide range of financial, business and more general topics based on our local experience and desire to be good citizens.

What Makes You Different?

We aim to build strong and lasting client relationships base on a patient analysis of the existing situation and careful explanation of future options.

We prefer the “hard listen” to the “hard sell”, and pride ourselves on retaining a very high percentage of clients even when they move to new locations.

Why Should I Plan My Finances?

Planning means freedom rather than restriction – it opens up possibilities and prevents restrictions on what you and your family can do.

By considering the possibilities of having children, early retirement, illness, accident or unemployment, and taking sensible measures to enable them to be encountered without undue financial hardship, you can have peace of mind.  

We are happy to help you look at these things and begin to put a plan in place and allow you to pursue your career and family life with financial confidence.

Do I Have Enough Money To Invest Offshore?

You don't need to be rich to put aside enough money to ensure future financial security.

Regular savings plans can be started for as little as US$250 per month, and lump sum investments from US$15000.

What Does “Offshore” Mean?

Investing in offshore financial centres, such as the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey, has many advantages.

These British dependencies have long histories of political stability and well-established legal systems giving higher levels of client protection and privacy than in the UK, US or other major countries. This reflects the importance of the financial sector to their local economies and their independence from national political and economic affairs.

They also offer many tax advantages, allowing better investment performance.

Consequently some of the world’s largest investment and insurance companies choose to operate from there, and thousands of investors enjoy the advantages of having their money “offshore”.

Can I Trust You With My Money?

Sinclair James does not handle your money directly.

Your money is paid directly to whichever of the leading global financial companies you select, and is transferred to the funds or products of your choice.

The offshore centres – such as the Isle of Man or Guernsey – from which these companies operate, offer higher levels of client protection that in mainland banks, and this protection is guaranteed by their governments.

Can I Protect My Capital?

We have a number of cautious products that provide good returns with almost no volatility. They are based on well-established business models, and are not directly linked to equities or other markets.

It is very unlikely that the value of these products falls below the amount invested, but we also have products that guarantee the capital invested.

Isn't It Better To Use A Bank?

Of course banks have their uses, but as places to invest large amounts of money, they have definite limitations:

• interest rates are lower than even our most cautious products
• in most countries banks guarantee asset much less than a typical investment portfolio
• banks have failed, or nearly failed in recent times

The insurance companies that administer offshore investment bonds are very large, much more cautious and have much higher credit ratings.

Furthermore assets in offshore centres like the Isle of Man are guaranteed by government statutes up to 90% of their value - with no limit. 

Should I Buy Property?

Owning property is a natural instinct, and is deeply ingrained in most cultures, and owning your permanent residence is often the first major financial investment that people make. However, there are risks in buying other properties, especially if in a foreign country.

See Buying Property for our analysis of the factors involved.

Do I Need Insurance?

All financial advisors can give true stories of how people have suffered unnecessarily, have received inadequate treatment or endured financial hardship as a result of not being properly insured.

Everybody living away from home should have medical insurance, and those with families need to ensure the financial well-being of their dependents via life or income protection insurance.

What If I Leave Town?

The products and services we offer have a global scope and can continue wherever life takes you, and many clients are now a long way from our Manila base.

Also, the steady improvement in communications means that we’re  equipped to support clients in any location.

The financial companies that provide the products we sell pay us commissions.

These commissions are standard and the same for any intermediary, and the products are not available to the public.  

Can I Do It All Myself?

The products that we sell are not available to the public because the financial companies, who have thousands of clients, only want to deal with a network of qualified financial brokers who are experienced in dealing with the necessary detail.

Your investments will benefit from volume discounts in the cost of trading equities that these companies enjoy. Even if you selected the same shares you would pay more to buy and sell them.

How Do I Proceed?

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