By Peter Dougherty
FOR more than 2,000 years, lighthouses have guided sailors and served as important beacons for navigation and safety.
The earliest known lighthouse, built in ancient Egypt, used polished bronze mirrors to project firelight across the sea to assist mariners on their journey.
In my work as a financial planner at BISSAN Wealth Management in Spain, I often feel like a modern-day lighthouse keeper: guiding expats with their finances and investments, providing a beacon to help them navigate the numerous complexities in the financial waters separating Spain and the United States.
The financial plans we construct for our clients at BISSAN provide clarity and direction to families during economic uncertainty, just as lighthouses help ships steer safely through darkness or storms.
Additionally, being guided by either a financial plan (or a lighthouse) provides confidence and peace of mind that investments (or ships) are on the right course.
For the more than 50,000 Americans who currently live in Spain, it is vital that whoever helps them construct their financial and investment plan has a thorough understanding of all the Spanish and American circumstances related to finance.
They do not want to overlook a viable investment strategy or financial product simply because their financial planner lacks knowledge of what is available in both countries.
Additionally, their advisor needs to be up to date on the regulations that restrict investment choices. A Spaniard living in Spain, for example, can buy most of the European-managed mutual funds available.
For an American in Spain, however, this would trigger unwelcome IRS tax treatment (PFIC).
To ensure that I have the knowledge necessary to assist clients, I rigorously study finance on both sides of the Atlantic.
In fact, I recently became a Certified Financial Planner® professional in the US. I was already the only American to hold Spain’s top financial planning credential: having earned the European Financial Planner (EFP) certification from EFPA España in 2021.
Our approach at BISSAN Wealth Management is very effective in helping expats in Spain. First, we learn about our client’s financial goals, what they would like to accomplish.
It might be buying a home, financing their children’s education, helping their parents in old age, etcetera.
We then quantify each of these goals in our optimisation model to determine expected future cash outflows and park the moneys that will be necessary for these expenses in safe, short-term investments.
Only after we understand a client’s circumstances – knowing how each separate decision about saving or investing fits into the bigger picture and having created a financial plan of the future they want to build – do we start to advise them on specific investments.
And only after a client’s anticipated future outflows have been safely protected from the market’s ups and downs, do we talk about investing for the long term.
A lighthouse keeper on an island does not shine their beacon for boats approaching in only one direction.
Instead, they make sure that all can be guided by it. Similarly, I strive to help clients with as many facets of their finances in each country as I can.
That is the reason I have been awarded both the CFP® certification in the US and the EFP in Spain.
That is also why I’ve earned two master’s degrees: a master’s in taxation in Spain as well as an MBA in finance in the United States.
Additionally, it is a key reason I chose to work at BISSAN Wealth Management, where I am the only employee who is not a native Spanish-speaker.
Working alongside teammates who are well-versed in the peculiarities of financial planning and investing in Spain is of great benefit to any expat living in this country.
Peter Dougherty is a Financial Planner at BISSAN Wealth Management in Spain. He holds an MBA in finance from Columbia University in New York and an MS in Spanish Taxation (Máster en Fiscalidad y Tributación) from Nebrija University in Spain. He is a European Financial Planner (EFP) in Spain and is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional and a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor® in the United States.
For more information: https://www.financial-planning-in-spain.com
Peter Dougherty
- MBA in finance
- MS in Spanish taxation
- BS in Economics
- European Financial Planner in Spain
- Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor® in U.S.
- Author of two financial planning books
- Certified Financial Planner™ in U.S.
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