Ethical IFA of the week: Smythe & Walter Chartered Financial Planners

There are plenty of independent financial advisers (IFAs) across the country who give advice on ethical and environmental investments. Our job is to tell you about them.

Smythe & Walter is one of only 400 or so firms with Chartered Financial Planner status in the UK. It promotes an ethos of “openness, ethics, integrity, and putting the clients’ wishes first”.

Based in London, and serving much of the south-east, it is a fairly young firm, providing independent financial advice across a range of sectors and putting great emphasis on its “transparent” way of business.

Smythe & Walter is led by advisers Lee Smythe and Ben Walter – both of whom have nearly 20 years’ experience in the industry. The pair decided, when setting up the firm, that they wanted to “stand out from the crowd” – hence its dedicated ethical and transparent way of working.

Lee Smythe was interviewed by Blue & Green Tomorrow in November 2011: “When [clients] come to us, some have either a very specific ethical agenda and know what they don’t want, or they have no agenda at all and just want what is best for them.

“It’s then when we make every effort to make them aware that there are ethical options available to them.”

To get in touch with Smythe & Walter about ethical investment, visit www.smytheandwalter.co.uk or email lee@smytheandwalter.co.uk.