The second Surrey branch meeting of the year took place on 28 February in Guildford. Delegates enjoyed two sessions, the first on the topics of business growth and questions to ask a private banking partner and second on maximising the value of cashflow modelling and working effectively with Paraplanners.

Adam Young of Dragonfly Financial Planning and Graeme Price of UBS kicked off proceedings. Adam explained how he has transformed his business and specifically covered how having private banking facilities has helped his clients. Adam shared some of what he has learnt during his 24 years in the profession. One of the key points he emphasised was the language used to communicate with clients and stressed the importance of not using jargon.

Another important point he raised was how much his clients value having options. He has done a lot of work with UBS including the use of asset-backed lending and values the reassurance it has given clients to know this facility is available - even if only a small proportion of clients utilise it.

Graeme Price then gave delegates an overview of the kinds of services private banks can offer to clients of Financial Planners. He also touched upon what questions planners should ask when deciding which private bank(s) to work with.

Martin Vaughan CFP^CM of Paragon Paraplanning, then took the floor for the second half of the meeting. He started by giving his definition of a Paraplanner - ‘to provide support and assistance to the planner to enable the planner to do their job better than they could otherwise do’. He highlighted that to work together effectively there must be respect, appreciation, communication, a shared objective and an understanding between the Paraplanner and planner.

Branch chairman Claire Menni said: "Thanks to all three speakers for making this a very valuable session. Our next meeting is on Friday 27 April. It’s a new format for us, a daytime meeting sponsored by BNY Mellon complete with lunch.

"Nick Clay, who co-manages the Newton Managed fund and is an excellent speaker, is joining us to give an economic update looking at the events to date and a view on what lies ahead. All are most welcome to attend."