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Owning a business may seem easy on the surface, but with it comes challenges. These challenges, more often than not, have to do with finances. It is natural for owners to be personally invested in every aspect of their business, from arranging financing to hiring employees. However, as businesses mature over a period of time, will these owners have the time to address and manage the growing financial risks as the business grows?

That’s where a financial adviser comes in handy. By working with a financial adviser, business owners can receive expert help in managing their business’ financial risks and transferring them away, thus freeing up time to focus on directing their businesses toward stability and growth.

From insurance planning to managing financial assets, financial advisers can utilize their expertise to help business owners make important financial decisions by recommending financial solutions that match their needs and risk appetites.

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Contributed by: Estelle Heng
Intern from Gerontological Management Studies, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Temasek Polytechnic.

‘I’m too young to think about this’ is probably the most common excuse not to start financial planning in Singapore. However, if we think twice, we’re never too young. Parents buy insurance for their babies as soon as they are born, some before they even take their first breaths. What’s so important about insurance that it is this urgent? The reality is that unexpected things happen. And when they do, you can’t afford to give up your future because of piled-up debts from hospitals or leaving your dependents to pay them off. So really, insurance is more than just protecting yourself, it includes supporting your loved ones as well.

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Contributed by: Bryan Zeng
CFA, General Manager, FA Advisory Sdn Bhd
(The contributor can be contacted at bryanzeng@fa.my).

Regardless of whether you are in Singapore or anywhere else in the world, financial planning, especially saving and investing, is crucial for you to beat inflation or to achieve your financial goal, such as to have a comfortable retirement. You may have heard of people who lost their fortune during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis or the 2007 Global Financial Crisis. However, when done right, investing can make an average person a millionaire.
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According to the financial services Industry Transformation Map (“ITM”) released in October 2017, the Singapore government aims to create 3,000 new finance jobs in Singapore annually. Among these, being a financial adviser representative, also known as a financial consultant, is a specialised finance job where building meaningful long-term relationships with customers is key. If that is not rewarding enough, the sky is the limit when it comes to remuneration – because your income is directly proportional to your perseverance and ingenuity, and does not depend on your superior’s appraisal of your performance.

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Contributed by: Shawn Low Wei Xuan
Intern from Gerontological Management Studies, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Temasek Polytechnic.

We often worry about whether our savings are sufficient to last us throughout our retirement period as we have to consider a lot of unpredictable factors like our desired lifestyle, our dependents’ needs, inflation, longevity, accidents and poor health. All these factors serve as critical risk factors that can potentially stop us from enjoying our golden years if we use up our retirement savings prematurely.

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In our earlier blog post, some factors to be considered by entrepreneurs when planning for their retirement were discussed, so this blog post will dive straight into a few retirement planning tips that entrepreneurs in Singapore may find useful.
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Regardless of whether one is an employee or entrepreneur, it’s natural for one to aim to have the best possible retirement plan in place so that one can enjoy his/her golden years with peace of mind. However, as an entrepreneur, retirement planning could be a little less straightforward and is subject to different considerations from those for an employee. Here are a few factors an entrepreneur needs to take into account when planning for retirement:

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When getting a will drafted, it is advisable to prepare the necessary documents to save yourself the unnecessary hassle of going back and forth with the will writer. To smoothen your will writing experience, we list below key documents that you can bring along when meeting up with your will writer.

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Getting health insurance cover is an important part of financial planning, even for young adults who live in a country like Singapore where the government actively exhorts healthy living as a priority and maintains a world class medical hub. It is understandable why young adults in Singapore find it difficult to wrap their minds around the idea of getting health insurance, especially since they live in one of the cleanest countries in the world.

However, getting health insurance is not just about protecting yourself today, it is also about planning ahead and protecting yourself in the future. Below are some examples of how youths in Singapore can benefit from having health insurance in place:

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Contributed by Michelle Ee, Wealth Management Director, Financial Alliance Pte Ltd
and MK Chan, Corporate Development Director, Financial Alliance Pte Ltd
(The contributors can be contacted at michelleee@fa.sg and mkchan@fa.sg)

In our previous articles, we gave an overview of what a critical illness insurance is, how the payout for a critical illness insurance works and how much critical illness insurance should one get. For this last instalment, Ms Michelle Ee, Financial Alliance’s Wealth Management Director, will talk about what to be wary of when making a purchasing decision.

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