Whilst many savings plans from various countries differ from each other in some ways, there are several features of this savings plan which make it notably different from most other savings plans in general.
The first major difference is that each individual savings plan is held in its own, legally separated, segregated portfolio. This means that the assets of your savings plan are completely separated from the assets of other savings plan owners and company assets, eliminating any risk of your savings value being affected by the actions or inactions of any other person or entity. Many savings plans combine the assets of all savings plans and their owners, which often works just fine, but can result in the loss of assets if and when something somewhere doesn’t go to plan. Being fully segregated prevents a low-probability/high-impact event of this type from even being a possibility for your savings plan.
Secondly, unlike the vast majority of savings plans worldwide, this one is multi-jurisdictional and fully globally portable – you do not have to be a resident of any specific country to start, or keep, this savings plan, and you are not forced to stop paying into it if and when you move countries. Since inception, Investors Trust have been 100% focussed on providing market-leading financial products to international expatriates (originally) and digital nomads (Investors Trust have been around since long before being a “digital nomad” was a thing).
Thirdly, you can access AND manage your account yourself, online, 24/7, via your own online login. This might not seem like a big thing if you’re not familiar with these types of products, but is actually quite a big deal – many other companies offering these “type” of products either have a very limited choice of investment funds, or force you to put any/all trades via a licensed financial advisor, who will usually need to charge you either an annual management fee (typically 1% of the total account value, per year, as a minimum) or a transaction fee so that they can afford to stay in business. If they’re good at their job and make good recommendations, it can be worth paying for; if they’re going to enforce their own decisions on you and/or make life difficult for you with endless requests for information due to “compliance requirements”, you might wish you had another way to get things done. This is what we offer – another way to get things done. In future, you can always appoint a specific personal financial advisor for your savings plan, and can choose any person or company which has the relevant required licenses to act as your financial and/or investment advisor on your Investors Trust account(s). In the meantime, particularly if you’re just starting out, have a go at educating yourself on how to manage your own investments effectively – we’ll help you do that, and remember that investment management decisions are secondary when it comes to how much wealth you will have in future. The primary impact will come from how much you choose to save each month – so focus on that first, and keep your assets in something relatively low-risk (such as the iShares S&P500 Index ETF which we’ve selected for everyone by default) until you’ve built up your financial skillset to the point where you’re comfortable making your own investment decisions.
A less important, but still highly valuable difference for digital nomads is that the full end-to-end process is 100% online, without any physical paperwork required. No “wet ink” signatures, no documents to get stamped and couriered somewhere – everything is done digitally, unlike the vast majority of pension-related insurance companies worldwide – even the ones which say they are focussed on international expatriates, somewhat incredibly. In addition to the obvious cost savings, environmental benefits, and ease of setting up and operating your pension plan, we think that the track record of Investors Trust - which has consistently demonstrated a desire to build fantastic innovative products, backed by world-class technology with regular upgrades as new technology emerges, AND always delivered in a (digital) way which makes it easy for both their customers and the financial professionals helping them – is a very good endorsement of their commitment to the global nomadic expatriate community and a good indicator of how they will continue to operate in future, which is a very important thing to consider when choosing a company to do business with for your medium-to-long term financial planning. Some of the SavingsForNomads team have been recommending this savings plan and other products from Investors Trust to their private clients (and colleagues!) for nearly a decade.
So yeah, we think it’s different from the others – and better :-)