A FINANCIAL planning firm based in County Durham has been named the best in the business.

Newton Aycliffe based Eldon Financial Planning has won The Personal Finance Awards’ UK “Chartered Financial Planning Firm of the Year” 2018-19.

The industry leading awards were held at London’s O2 Intercontinental Hotel, hosted by broadcaster and writer Clive Anderson.

This is the second time that Eldon has picked up the leading Personal Finance Society (PFS) award, having also won in 2011. The PFS are part of the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) Group, that received its Royal Charter over 100 years ago.

Director Gemma Siddle was also celebrating, having reached the final three in the individual UK Chartered Financial Planner of the Year category for a second year in a row. A record number of entries for the 14 award categories made this year the most competitive yet.

Eldon was founded in 2002, by three financial planning experts determined to re-think the traditional model by providing an ongoing, holistic, financial planning service.

The directors went on to gain the highest available CII qualifications and embedded a culture of ‘treating customers fairly’ long before it became mandatory. Passionate about the development of the profession, they achieved Chartered status, and Fellowship of the PFS, in its very first wave.

Since then, Eldon has continued to grow through referral and recommendation by listening closely to their clients and helping them to understand their finances.

Eldon continues to invest in technology and systems to deliver an efficient, accessible and personalised service, setting out clients’ financial goals and milestones in a highly visual and easy to understand way.

New colleagues at Eldon, be they paraplanners or advisers, all work towards Chartered status. The team can proudly boast that, other than through retirement, no-one has ever left the business. Gemma is a ‘Chartered Champion’ and an active member of the national Financial Planning Panel, and gets involved with local community and charity initiatives, as well as promoting the profession to young people through training and work experience.

The PFS panel said: “The judges were impressed by Eldon, a Chartered Financial Planning firm with a unique culture driven by client centricity and commitment to nurturing the talent of the future.”

Eldon director, Tony Conner said: “We are absolutely delighted to win this accolade. Our team is hard-working with a strong culture of doing the best for our clients so to have this external recognition and endorsement of the work we do is fantastic.”

Fellow director Gemma described the win as “a testament to our magnificent team and their dedication in working together to give our clients the best service possible”.

To find out more, visit www.eldonfinancial.co.uk.