The short answer

Ardan International is an Isle of Man wealth platform, part of the IFGL group, that lets expats hold funds, ETFs, shares, bonds, structured notes and fixed-rate deposits in one online account, with cash in up to 11 currencies and no transaction charges for switching between them. Its published charges are a 0.4% yearly account fee and a small fixed dealing charge — about R110 a trade — with no minimum investment, no lock-in and no exit charges. A free beneficiary trust helps assets pass to your family without probate, and South African rand is one of the platform currencies. Ardan is available only through financial advisers. Lawrence offers a free review to help you decide whether a platform like Ardan — or an offshore endowment, or both — is right for you.

Who Ardan International is

Ardan International Limited was launched in 2013 as an online wealth platform for international clients and their advisers. It's based in Castletown, in the Isle of Man, and audited by PwC.

Ardan belongs to International Financial Group Limited (IFGL), alongside RL360, Friends Provident International and IFGL Pensions. Together, the group looks after around US$31 billion of assets for more than 212,000 customers. That gives Ardan the backing of one of the largest groups in international savings, while it concentrates on one thing: running a modern, flexible investment platform.

Ardan serves international investors, trustees, companies and expats in more than 150 countries, through financial advisers in centres such as Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Bangkok. It has won Best International Platform at the International Investment Awards in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, and in 2025 AKG rated it "B (strong)" for financial strength and five stars for service.

Ardan at a glance

The common thread is flexibility: a platform that adapts to an international life, rather than a fixed-term plan you have to fit around.

How the platform works

Ardan is an "open architecture" wrap platform. Your adviser opens an account for you — as an individual, trustee or company — and builds a portfolio from a very wide range of investments. Everything is held in one place, valued daily and visible online around the clock.

What it can hold

• Funds — a range of tens of thousands, with access to the Allfunds research centre.
• Exchange-traded funds — low-cost index trackers.
• Shares on major stock exchanges.
• Bonds issued by governments and companies.
• Structured notes for defined outcomes.
• Fixed-rate deposits and notice accounts with Lloyds Bank International.

Model portfolios

Advisers can use model portfolios — run in-house or by an external discretionary fund manager — so your investments are managed to an agreed risk level and rebalanced automatically.

One login, many portfolios

A single login can show several portfolios — yours, a joint account, a family trust, a company — so you see your whole position at once.

Eleven currencies in one account

For South Africans, Ardan's multi-currency design is one of its biggest attractions. You can hold cash and investments in eleven currencies: US dollars, euros, Swiss francs, Japanese yen, Singapore dollars, Hong Kong dollars, Australian dollars, UAE dirhams, Canadian dollars, South African rand and one other major currency. You can switch between currency accounts online, with no transactional FX charges on the platform, and value your whole portfolio in any of them — changing your base currency if your plans change.

Rand being on the list is unusual, and useful. You can value your whole portfolio in rand to compare it with what you hold in South Africa, or keep a rand pocket for costs back home — a home loan, family support or a trip — while the bulk of the money sits in dollars and euros, away from the rand's long-term slide. Most South Africans in Thailand want hard currency for growth, and a reserve ready to move into baht as Thai costs approach. Baht isn't one of the platform currencies, so money for spending in Thailand still needs converting when you bring it in — at a good rate. Our guide to currency risk explains how to plan.

Ardan's published charges

Ardan's platform charges, from its published product summary.

Source: Ardan product summary ARD002h (05/24); fixed fees converted to rand at October 2026 rates. Fund charges, adviser fees and third-party costs such as stockbroker fees are extra. Check the latest pricing with your adviser.

What it costs in practice

Ardan's pricing is refreshingly simple: a flat 0.4% a year on your portfolio, low dealing charges and no penalties for leaving. On a R2 million portfolio that's about R8,000 a year; on R5 million, about R20,000. There's no minimum investment, and there are no establishment periods of the kind found on many savings plans and endowments.

Your total cost also includes the charges of the investments you hold and your adviser's fee. Choose low-cost index funds and ETFs and the total can be very competitive; add actively managed funds, a discretionary manager or structured notes and it rises. Independent reviewers have noted that a flat percentage fee is very competitive for smaller and mid-sized portfolios, while larger portfolios may find tiered pricing elsewhere — and that structured notes can carry costs that are less visible. Ask your adviser for the total yearly cost in rand, and compare it with alternatives — including the Effective Annual Cost on any South African products you hold. Our guide to platform and fund charges shows how.

Where to start

Ardan is available only through a financial adviser. Start with a free conversation, then use the right accounts and providers to move your money offshore and to Thailand.

The free beneficiary trust

One of Ardan's most valuable features for expats is its free beneficiary trust. Without planning, money held in an account in your name can be frozen on death until probate is granted — and for an expat with assets in more than one country, that can take a long time.

Ardan's beneficiary trust is designed to avoid probate. Assets don't have to be sold on death, so the portfolio can be divided among your beneficiaries as it stands, and your family can access the money far more quickly. For a South African with a Thai partner and children in South Africa, that can make a very real difference at a difficult time — and assets that pass outside your South African estate avoid executor's fees of up to 3.5% plus VAT on them. A trust doesn't remove South African estate duty, which applies to worldwide assets while you're ordinarily resident, so plan both together. Our guide to offshore structures and trusts explains how trusts work for expats.

Funding Ardan from South Africa

For a South African resident, money that leaves the country to go onto an offshore platform uses your single discretionary allowance — up to R2 million each calendar year — and, beyond that, the foreign investment allowance of up to a further R10 million with SARS approval, which can take three weeks or more. With no minimum investment, Ardan works for a first transfer of any size; larger sums can move in stages across calendar years.

The cleanest set-up for most people is to move rand offshore at a good rate into a hard-currency bank account in your own name, and fund the platform from there. That keeps a clear record of what left South Africa and when — useful for SARS and for Thai tax — and means future top-ups don't depend on a rand transfer each time.

What about your retirement funds?

South African retirement annuities, pension and provident funds and living annuities stay in South Africa — they can't be moved onto an offshore platform like Ardan. A retirement annuity can hold at most 45% offshore under Regulation 28; a living annuity isn't bound by Regulation 28 and can hold more offshore, with drawdowns of 2.5% to 17.5% a year.

Once you've ceased South African tax residence and been non-resident for three years, a retirement annuity can be paid out, taxed under SARS's lump sum tables — and that money, once offshore, could then be invested on a platform in hard currency, with the beneficiary trust for your family. A review can show how your retirement funds and offshore investments fit together as one plan.

Platform, endowment — or both?

A platform and an offshore endowment aren't really rivals; they do different jobs, and many South Africans in Thailand use both.

A platform like Ardan is about flexibility and cost: easy access, a wide choice of low-cost investments, several currencies and no lock-in. An offshore endowment — a life-assurance wrapper from a company such as RL360 — is about structure and estate planning: you can name beneficiaries so the policy pays out directly, outside your will, and it works neatly with trusts. Endowments usually carry establishment periods and higher charges, so the case for one rests on what it does for your family.

Within the IFGL group, the two can work together. RL360's PIMS portfolio policy, for example, allows an investment platform to be appointed to hold the policy's investments — combining the endowment's wrapper with a platform's investment choice. Other South Africans keep an endowment for long-term and estate-planning money, and a platform account for flexible savings they may need sooner.

The right mix depends on how much you have, how long you'll invest, whether you may go back to South Africa and how you want your money to pass to your family. Our guide to offshore structures explains each in depth.

Getting started: how opening an account works

Opening an Ardan account is designed to be quick, and is done entirely online with your adviser:

1. A conversation with your adviser about your goals, risk level, currencies and timescale.
2. A written recommendation setting out the portfolio and every charge.
3. Online application, with app-based identity checks — Ardan says applications can be accepted in as little as 30 minutes.
4. Funding the account in the currency or currencies you choose.
5. Investing — your adviser places the trades, with several dealing runs each day.
6. Your own online access to valuations around the clock.
7. Setting up the beneficiary trust, if you want one.
8. A yearly review to rebalance and check the plan still fits.

Because there's no lock-in, you're never tied in if your circumstances change — but a good portfolio still works best when it's left to grow and reviewed calmly once a year.

How your money is protected

Ardan is built around keeping client assets separate and secure. Investments are held through a nominee company, client money is kept in segregated bank accounts, and Ardan's custody partners include Citibank and Allfunds. Client assets are never mixed with Ardan's own, so if anything happened to Ardan, they would remain the clients'. The business is audited each year by PwC.

As with any genuine platform, your money goes into the account in your name, you have your own online access and statements, and everything your adviser recommends is visible to you. Onboarding includes identity checks — biometric, document and database — which protect you as well as the platform. These are exactly the features our due diligence guide recommends looking for.

Strengths and points to consider

A balanced view of Ardan International for expats.

General observations from published information and independent reviews, October 2026 — not a recommendation for any individual.

Who Ardan suits

Ardan tends to suit South Africans in Thailand who:

• Want flexibility — to add, withdraw and change investments without lock-ins.
• Hold money in several currencies, or may move country again.
• Want a low-cost portfolio of index funds and ETFs, or a managed model portfolio.
• Want family planning built in through the free beneficiary trust.
• Want to keep some rand on the same platform as their dollars and euros.
• Value a large group behind the platform.

Those wanting named beneficiaries and a long-term estate-planning wrapper may prefer an offshore endowment — or an endowment held alongside a platform. Our guide to lump-sum investment planning compares the options.

How Ardan compares

A broad comparison with the other providers in our profiles.

See our Novia Global and RL360 profiles for more.

Ardan for expats in Thailand

• Funding: move rand offshore within your allowances, ideally into your own offshore bank account first.
• Currency: hold dollars and euros for growth, a little rand if you have costs at home, and convert a year's spending into baht at a good rate.
• Thai tax: income and gains brought into Thailand by a Thai tax resident can be taxable since 2024; money from before 2024 is protected. Keep clear records of what you invested and when — see our tax residence guide.
• SARS: while you're South African tax resident, SARS taxes your worldwide investment income and gains.
• Visa: a platform can hold the savings behind your retirement extension, while the ฿800,000 deposit sits in a Thai bank.
• Family: the beneficiary trust helps a Thai partner and children receive assets quickly.
• Moving on: the account moves with you if you relocate again.

Three ways expats use a platform

A home for a lump sum

House-sale proceeds, an inheritance or unit trusts you'd like out of rand can be moved offshore and built into a diversified, low-cost portfolio — invested all at once or in stages — with no lock-in if plans change.

Retirement income

A platform makes it easy to keep a year or two of income in cash, a few years in bonds and the rest in growth investments, taking regular withdrawals and rebalancing as you go. Our guide to portfolio reviews and rebalancing explains how.

Education and family goals

Separate portfolios under one login can hold money for different goals — school fees, university, retirement — each with its own risk level and currency, moving to safer investments as each date approaches. Ask about school-fee planning, or compare schools in our international schools directory.

Three worked examples

Johan: a low-cost global portfolio

Johan, 55, in Bangkok, has about R3.9 million he has moved offshore over two years on his discretionary allowance, and wants a simple, low-cost portfolio he can add to and draw from. Lawrence suggests a platform account with global ETFs in dollars and euros, a model portfolio rebalanced automatically, and the free beneficiary trust for his wife and children.

Lerato and Arthit: three currencies, one view

Lerato, 44, and Arthit, 46, hold savings in rand, dollars and Singapore dollars from years in Asia. A platform lets them see everything in one place, switch currencies online and plan for school fees in Bangkok and a possible university abroad. Ask about school-fee planning, or compare schools in our international schools directory.

Pieter: a retirement annuity paid out

Pieter, 61, ceased South African tax residence more than three years ago and lives in Pattaya. With Lawrence and a tax adviser, he plans the payout of his retirement annuity, moves the money offshore at a good rate and invests it on a platform in US dollars, with no exit charges in case his plans change and the beneficiary trust for his Thai wife.

Questions to ask before you start

1. Platform, endowment or both — and why, for my situation?
2. What is the total yearly cost — account fee, funds, dealing and advice — in rand?
3. How will I move the money offshore — on which allowance, and at what rate?
4. Which investments, and who will manage and rebalance them?
5. Which currencies, and how will I bring money into baht?
6. Should I use the beneficiary trust, and for whom?
7. How will withdrawals be taxed in Thailand?
8. How is the adviser paid, and how often will we review?

Your platform checklist

• Set your goals first: growth, income, education, family.
• Know the total cost in rand and percentages.
• Build a diversified, low-cost portfolio.
• Choose your currencies to match your spending.
• Set up the beneficiary trust, and keep it up to date.
• Keep records of what you invest and when.
• Plan withdrawals around Thai tax.
• Review once a year and rebalance.

Keeping your account secure

• Use a strong, unique password for your platform login.
• Turn on two-factor sign-in wherever it's offered.
• Use a private, protected connection on hotel, café and condo Wi-Fi.
• Check withdrawal requests and bank details carefully — and never act on unexpected messages.

How we researched this profile

We used Ardan International's own published information — its brochure (February 2026), product summary (May 2024) for charges and currencies and "Ten reasons to use Ardan" — together with Adam Fayed's independent review (February 2025). Checked 13 October 2026; fixed fees converted to rand at October 2026 rates, and South African allowances and retirement rules as at 2026. Charges and features change; check the latest pricing with your adviser. This profile is general information, not a recommendation of any product for any individual.