contributed by Peter Dougherty, CFP®, CRPC®, EFP (Spain) of BISSAN Wealth Management

Whether you’re driving downtown or passing by a new corner plaza, you may encounter a sign hanging the familiar logo of an Edward Jones office. That’s because the financial services firm boasts more than 15,000 branch offices throughout the U.S. and Canada. But Edward Jones does not have an office in Spain. Not one. Nor does Charles Schwab. So, where can Americans living in Spain go for retirement planning?

The answer is Peter Dougherty, a financial planner at Spain’s BISSAN Wealth Management. Since 2010, BISSAN has been assisting clients in Spain with financial, retirement and wealth management. Unlike its large American counterparts, BISSAN Wealth Management boasts just two offices, in Barcelona and Bilbao. What they lack in number of locations, though, they hope to make up for in local financial know-how.

Peter Dougherty joined BISSAN’s team of financial planners in January 2023. He was very deliberate in choosing where to work. To help Americans living in Spain, he sought a financial firm with a solid grasp of how financial and retirement planning really works in Spain. Peter wanted to avoid being like a new coach hired at a losing sports team to change the team’s direction. Instead, he wanted to augment the expertise of a successful, well-functioning group of professionals.

This is exactly what he’s done at BISSAN: adding an American CFP® professional to a financial firm that was previously Spain-centric. Peter, as a matter of fact, is the only member of the team who is not a native Spanish speaker. But he does speak Spanish. In fact, Peter earned a master’s degree in Spanish taxation from Universidad Nebrija last year— entirely in Spanish. He’s also certified as a European Financial Planner by the European Financial Planning Association of Spain. To this day, he’s the only American to earn this certification. Working alongside teammates who are well-versed in the Spanish financial process has been a tremendous advantage in assisting American expats in Spain.

The approach of BISSAN Wealth Management, according to Dougherty, “is for us to learn about our client’s financial goals, what they’d like to accomplish. It might be retirement, financing the education of children or grandchildren, buying a home, etc. We then quantify these goals in our inventive optimization model to determine expected future cash outflows and park the moneys that will be necessary for these expenses in short term investments. Only after we understand a client’s circumstances and have created a financial plan for them 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.”

Even in Spain, BISSAN Wealth Management is far from a household name. But it is the only name to know for Americans in Spain looking for retirement planning advice.

Peter Dougherty is a financial planner at BISSAN Wealth Management who helps Americans in Spain. He holds an MBA in Finance and a BS in Economics in the United States and a MS in taxation (Máster en Fiscalidad y Tributación) in Spain. He is the author of two financial planning books: “The Dougherty Code: Secrets of Financial Planning in Spain” and “La Hoja de Ruta Fiscal y Financiera para los españoles en EE.UU.” (Spanish). For more information: financial-planning-in-spain.com

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