Dealing with scams

For internationally mobile individuals, the financial landscape is changing in ways that are both significant and largely irreversible. Over the past decade, governments and regulatory bodies have moved steadily toward greater cooperation, enhanced data sharing, and more sophisticated tracking of both people and their assets. Today, that shift has reached a point where the concept […]

Many clients have sensibly opted to invest in Assurance Vie (Investment Bonds) type arrangements in France for the huge income tax and inheritance advantages offered though these products for French residents. A large selection of clients have also taken the option of using the Fond en Euros or Sterling funds preferring the guaranteed rates of return offered and the invested capital’s security.

Indeed so used are the Fond en Euros funds within Assurance vie “wrappers” that often clients believe that they are one and the same. The Fond en Euros main principles are that your capital’s value is guaranteed and you are given an annual rate of interest. The assurance vie ensures your funds grow free of French taxation due to the code of law relating to Life Insurance products. This combination has been so used in France and so much money tied up in these arrangements that the Government want to bring in a statute to limit the percentage invested into Fond en Euros per investor portfolio as they see this type of fund as stagnating the French economy and restricting investment into industry via the purchase of “actions” or shares.