BDH Sterling was growing at about 20 per cent year on year when Covid hit. Since then it has found time to take stock and focusing on putting the right foundations in place for its next phase.
"We've done a lot of things to improve our social proof," says Harvey. "Each of our offices has got a Google profile, and we've got over 100 5-star reviews across each site, but you don't get those without having a systematic approach to asking clients and you have to follow through on these things," he adds.
Adapting its service
People relocating between the UK and Australia face particular challenges, many of which are around transferring pension assets.
For instance, there are caps on the amount people can transfer in any given year and assets need to be transferred into particular fund structures.
But there are also significant benefits because in Australia the entire pension fund can be accessed tax free, says Harvey.
"It's quite attractive because their system works in reverse of ours," he says.
For people who are coming back there are issues around how to access their Australian superfund.
To cater for people's particular needs the firm has had to evolve, says Harvey.
"[Pensions is] the main reason people initially engage with us to move their assets but then we are delivering lifetime cashflow, we have to use the UK and Australian versions because what works in one doesn't work in the other," he says.
"That's often a challenge for us as a business, off the shelf solutions generally don't work because what we do is so unique so we end up having to build things ourselves. So we've worked with pension providers to develop unique products to meet the needs of our clients," he adds.
It has also set up a tax firm to help clients file their tax returns which they need to do for their specific Australian self managed superannuation fund. This is needed to transfer a UK pension and BDH Sterling has set up an administration service to help manage the fund.
"We really have tailored our service to meet the needs of our target clients," says Harvey. "The goal for us is to have lifetime relationships with those clients rather than have just that transactional piece of advice."
carmen.reichman@ft.com
