TERMS OF BUSINESS OF:  Tom Clarke Financial Services Limited Trading as Tom Clarke Finance                

These Terms of Business set out the basis on which Tom Clarke Financial Services Limited will provide business services to you as an individual private client of the firm. Please take a few minutes to read through these and if you have any questions I will be happy to answer them. If any material changes are made to these terms we will notify you.

Our firm is subject to the following Codes of conduct issued by the Central Bank of Ireland. These codes offer protection to our clients and all of the Codes can be found on the Central Bank’s website www.centralbank.ie Consumer Protection Code 2012, Minimum Competency Code 2011, Prudential Handbook for Authorised Advisors and Restricted Intermediaries.  

Authorised Status

Tom Clarke Financial Services Limited is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland as an Insurance Intermediary registered under European Communities (Insurance Mediation) Regulations, 2005, as an Investment Intermediary authorised under the Investment Intermediaries Act 1995 and as a Mortgage Intermediary under the Consumer Mortgage Credit Agreements Regulations (CMCAR) 2016. Our firm is also authorised as a deposit broker. A list of the product producers and lending institutions from which the firm holds written letters of appointment is attached at Appendix 1.  The Central Bank holds registers of regulated firms. You may contact the Central Bank of Ireland on 1890 777 777 or alternatively visit their website www.centralbank.ie

Our Services

Our principal business is to provide advice and arrange transactions on behalf of clients in relation to life & pensions, mortgages and general insurance products.

 Our services for life & pensions and mortgages are provided on a ‘Fair Analysis of the Market’’ basis.

The concept of fair analysis is derived from the Insurance Mediation Directive. It describes the extent of the choice of products and providers offered by an intermediary within a particular category of life assurance, general insurance, mortgages, and/ or a specialist area. The number of contracts and providers considered must be sufficiently large to enable an intermediary to recommend a product that would be adequate to meet a client’s needs.

The number of providers that constitutes ‘sufficiently large’ will vary depending on the number of providers operating in the market for a particular product or service and their relative importance in and share of that market. The extent of fair analysis must be such that could be reasonably expected of a professional conducting business, taking into account the accessibility of information and product placement to intermediaries and the cost of the search.

In order to ensure that the number of contracts and providers is sufficiently large to constitute a fair analysis of the market, we will consider the following criteria:

  • the needs of the customer,
  • the size of the customer order,
  • the number of providers in the market that deal with brokers,
  • the market share of each of those providers,
  • the number of relevant products available from each provider,
  • the availability of information about the products,
  • the quality of the product and service provided by the provider,
  • cost, and
  • Any other relevant consideration.

Life & Pensions & Investments

Tom Clarke Financial Services Limitedprovides life assurance and pensions on a fair analysis basis i.e. providing services on the basis of a sufficiently large number of contracts and product producers available on the market to enable us to make a recommendation, in accordance with professional criteria, regarding which contract would be adequate to meet the your needs.

We will provide assistance to you for any queries you may have in relation to the policies or in the event of a claim during the life of the policies and we will explain to you the various restrictions, conditions and exclusions attached to your policy. However, it is your responsibility to read the policy documents, literature and brochures to ensure that you understand the nature of the policy cover; particularly in relation to PHI and serious illness policies.

Specifically on the subject of permanent health insurance policies it is our policy to explain to you a) the meaning of disability as defined in the policy; b) the benefits available under the policy; c) the general exclusions that apply to the policy; and d) the reductions applied to the benefit where there are disability payments from other sources.

For a serious illness policy, we will explain clearly to you the restrictions, conditions and general exclusions that attach to that policy.

Non-Life

Tom Clarke Financial Services Limited provides general insurance on a limited analysis basis (providing services on the basis of a limited number of contracts and product producers available in the market). We provide household insurance with the following product producer:

  • MBC Insurance

Mortgages

Through the lenders or other undertakings with which we hold an agency, Tom Clarke Financial Services Limited can provide advice on and arrange mortgage products from the following range: fixed-rate loans, variable rate mortgages, capital & interest mortgages, interest only mortgages, endowment mortgages, pension mortgages and residential investment property.

Tom Clarke Finance provides mortgage advice on a fair analysis basis (providing services on the basis of a sufficiently large number of contracts and product producers available on the market to enable the firm to make a recommendation, in accordance with professional criteria, regarding which contract would be adequate to meet your needs).

We will need to collect sufficient information from you before we can offer any advice on housing loans. This is due to the fact that a key issue in relation to mortgage advice is affordability. Such information should be produced promptly upon our request.

Disclosure of Information

Any failure to disclose material information may invalidate your claim and render your policy void.

Remuneration Policy

As regards Investment / Life Assurance and General Insurance products, Tom Clarke Financial Services Limited may receive commission and other payments from the product producer to whom orders are transmitted. Summary details of these payments will be included in a product information document, which you are legally entitled to receive before an application for a product is completed, and full details will be included with your cooling-off letter.

 As regards Mortgage Business, Tom Clarke Financial Services Limited is remunerated by commission of up to 1% from the completion of business with the lenders that are listed in Appendix 1. 

We also reserve the right to charge a fee for our services. These are as follows:

  • Approval in Principle from lender – €500
  • Self-Build applications – €800
  • If we secure a letter of offer for you and you do not proceed with the loan, there will be a charge for our services. This fee is €300 at present, but is liable to change from time to time.

Regular Reviews

It is in your best interests that you review, on a regular basis, the products which we have arranged for you. As your circumstances change, your needs will change. You must advise us of those changes and request a review of the relevant policy so that we can ensure that you are provided with up to date advice and products best suited to your needs. Failure to contact us in relation to changes in your circumstances or failure to request a review may result in you having insufficient insurance cover and/or inappropriate investments.

Conflicts of Interest

It is the policy of the firm to avoid any conflict of interest when providing business services to its clients. However, where an unavoidable conflict may

Arise we will advise you of this in writing before proceeding to provide any business service. If you have not been advised of any such conflict you are entitled to assume that none arises.

Legal Rights/Default on payments by clients

Tom Clarke Financial Services Limited will, if necessary, exercise its legal rights to receive any payments due to it from clients for business services provided by it and, to be reimbursed for any value obtained by the firm for clients arising from payments by the firm on behalf of clients who subsequently default in any payment due to the firm.

Product producers may withdraw benefits or cover on default of any payments due under any products arranged for your benefit. Details of these provisions will be included in your product terms and conditions.

Complaints Procedure

We ask that you make any complaint against our firm in writing. We will acknowledge all complaints within 5 business days of the complaint being received and we will fully investigate it. We shall investigate the complaint as swiftly as possible, and, the complainant will receive an update on the complaint at intervals of not greater than 20 business days starting from the date on which the complaint is made. On completion of our investigation, we will provide you with a written report of the outcome. In the event that you are still dissatisfied with our handling of, or response to, your complaint, you are entitled to refer the matter to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman;

Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman,

Lincoln House,

Lincoln Place,

Dublin 2

D02 VH29

Tel:                 + 353 (1) 5677000

Email:            [email protected]

Web:               www.fspo.ie

A full copy of our complaints procedure is available on request.

Investor Compensation

Tom Clarke Financial Services Limited is a member of the Investor Compensation Scheme, which provides certain remedies to eligible clients on default by the firm. The main details of the operation and conditions of the Scheme are attached at Appendix 2.  Your legal rights against the firm are not affected by this scheme.

Data Protection

Tom Clarke Financial Services Limited complies with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation 2018 and the Irish Data Protection Act 2018. The data which you provide to us will be held on a computer database and paper files for the purpose of arranging transactions on your behalf. The data will be processed only in ways compatible with the purposes for which it was given and as outlined in our Data Privacy Notice and Data Protection policy.

In relation to Confidentiality and Data Protection we collect your personal details in order to provide the highest standard of service to you. We take great care with the information provided; taking steps to keep it secure and to ensure it is used only for legitimate purposes. To fulfil these objectives, we may share information with other affiliated professionals.

You have the right at any time to request a copy of any ‘personal data’ within the meaning of the GDPR that our office holds about you and to have any inaccuracies in that information corrected. Please contact us at [email protected] if you have any concerns about your personal data. Further, you warrant that you shall take all actions necessary and appropriate to comply with applicable notification and consent requirements of any “data subjects” necessary for us to process or control personal data for the purposes of or relating to the work we undertake on your behalf.

Effective Date: 28 February 2023 

Tom Clarke Financial Services Limited trading as Tom Clarke Finance is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland 


Appendix 1.

Product producers (Investment/Life Companies/Lending Institutions) from whom Tom Clarke Financial Services Limited holds written letters of appointment to act as an intermediary:

Lenders
  • ptsb
  • Haven Mortgages
  • Finance Ireland
  • Dilosk
  • ICS Mortgages
  • Spry Finance
  • HomePlus
Investment/Life Companies
  • Royal London
  • New Ireland
  • Aviva
  • Zurich
  • Irish Life
  • ptsb
  • BCP Asset Management
  • Cantor Fitzgerald

Appendix 2.

  Investor Compensation Act, 1998.  

Under Section 38 (1) of the Investor Compensation Act, 1998 I wish to draw your attention to the following:

  • The Investor Compensation Act, 1998 provides for the establishment of a compensation scheme and the payment, in certain circumstances, of compensation to certain clients (known as eligible investors) of authorised investment firms, as defined in that Act;
  • This firm is a member of the compensation scheme;
  • Compensation may be payable where money or investment instruments owed or belonging to clients and held, or in the case of investment instruments, administered or managed by my firm cannot be returned to those clients for the time being and there is no reasonably foreseeable opportunity of the firm being able to do so;
  • A right to compensation will arise only:
  • if the client is an eligible investor as defined in the Act:
  • if it transpires that my firm is not in a position to return client money or investment instruments owned or belonging to the clients of the firm; and
  • to the extent that the client’s loss is recognised for the purposes of the Act:
  • where an entitlement to compensation is established, the compensation payable will be the lesser of:                                                                                                          (a) 90 per cent of the amount of the client’s loss which is recognised for the purposes of the Investor Compensation Act, 1988    

                                                        Or

                        (b) Compensation of up to EUR20, 000.