The Intermediary spoke with Paul Saroya of Viva Retirement Solutions following the firm’s recent win at the Later Life Lending Awards.
Congratulations on winning Best Large Advisory Firm at the inaugural Later Life Lending Awards; how important is getting this recognition to you?
We have been with Air for almost 10 years and have grown from two people to 16 people in the company.
So it is a great achievement to be recognised by Air and the panel of judges for being a step above in our category
What do you think sets your business apart from others in the field?
Viva has grown to have a great brand name within the industry for always giving the best advice and looking after our clients.
When you top this with complete market interaction to raise overall standards, we feel that this sets us apart
How important is it to recognise achievement in the sector?
It is vitally important to recognise achievement within the sector as the sector is expanding and becoming more and more important in people’s everyday finances.
It is vital to recognise the small sole trader firms all the way up to the bigger firms like ourselves to showcase what the best firms do and why they do it so that others can follow
Looking ahead how do you see the next 12 months playing out for the later life market?
Of course, interest rates will not return to levels we saw a year ago, but there will be a new “normal”; we are hoping at around the 5% fixed-for-life levels.
We can see that the reasons for loans will reduce from aspirational wants and will increase for the “needs-based” market due to the economic climate.
This will in turn reduce the average case size but potentially increase case numbers.
We are lucky to be a market that caters for the exceptionally wealthy and cash-poor types of clients, as this will serve everyone well through the different economic climates.
What advice would you give to someone looking to join the market?
Now more than ever anyone wanting to join the market must be fully committed and not spinning their day job along with getting up to speed with this niche market.
New advisers must be recommending the benefits of making some sort of repayments to reduce the effect compound interest will have on legacies to beneficiaries, and they must be prepared to persevere in a market that has had the stuffing knocked out of it in the last quarter. It will take time to get established and to build a business.
How do you rate your chances of defending your win next year?
At Viva we pride ourselves on trying to “push things forward”, and so we will be defending our achievement with all of our might!
That is not to say that we cannot be beaten, but if anyone does want to beat us, then they will need to be at the very top of their game!!
NB Mark Lambert of Viva Retirement Solutions is pictured collecting the award.
