Moneyfacts Group

Last updated
Moneyfacts
Company typeFinancial services
Founded1988
Headquarters
Norwich, Norfolk
,
UK
Key people
John Woods (Founder & Executive Chairman), Vicki Poole (Finance Director)
Number of employees
over 80
Website www.moneyfactsgroup.co.uk
www.moneyfactscompare.co.uk

Moneyfacts Group Plc is a financial information company founded in 1988 [1] based in Norwich in the United Kingdom, employing over 80 people.

Contents

History

Moneyfacts was founded in 1988 by John Woods, who led the financial industry group which was established in Norwich. The first school of financial services outside London. He received an honorary doctor of civil law from the UEA. [2] Moneyfacts was first launched as a six-page monthly fact sheet that brought personal finance products together to allow for comparison. This has since expanded to a range of magazines: Moneyfacts (personal finance products); Business Moneyfacts (business finance products); and Investment Life & Pensions Moneyfacts (pension and investment products). Moneyfacts now provides a range of financial product information services, including a price comparison website (Moneyfactscompare.co.uk), product analyzer systems, treasury reports, executive reports, industry awards, and product star ratings. The brand has grown rapidly and is known throughout the UK as the independent and unbiased source of financial information. [3] Moneyfacts Data is used throughout the UK financial industry.[ citation needed ] It is used by the Bank of England, [4] Financial Conduct Authority, Financial Ombudsman Service, HM Treasury, Prudential Regulatory Authority, UK Finance and The Building Societies Association and, by virtually every bank and building society in the UK, it also powers other UK financial comparison websites.[ citation needed ]

Product chronology

Activities

Moneyfacts' main activities are: [5]

Additional activities

Controversies

In 2004, its rival Moneysupermarket.com paid Moneyfacts £3.9 million in an out of court settlement to settle a dispute of alleged intellectual property theft. At the time, Moneysupermarket was going public at a price between £864 million and £1.05 billion, and it was thought best to resolve the issue beforehand. [20]

In 2007, the “best buy” tables used in the UK press were criticized by Mike Lazenby, the then 'maverick' [21] CEO of the Kent Reliance Building Society, for not reflecting the products which offered the best long-term value, with Moneyfacts bearing the brunt of the criticism. The main objections were: [22]

The historic issue was that some non-subscribers tended not to volunteer their data within the time required. With the benefit of more widely available digital data, this is no longer an issue. To resolve the issue of product providers manipulating submissions by introductory bonuses, Moneyfacts now produces its tables in versions with and without these bonuses.

Subsequently, in 2013, Moneyfacts were praised in the Sunday Times, [23] which highlighted that Moneyfacts.co.uk always lists the genuine best buy products for its customers regardless of any financial arrangements with product providers, whilst other comparison websites were found to purely recommend financial products on a commercial basis.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Financial services</span> Economic service provided by the finance industry

Financial services are economic services tied to finance provided by financial institutions. Financial services encompass a broad range of service sector activities, especially as concerns financial management and consumer finance.

Nationwide Building Society is a British mutual financial institution, the seventh largest cooperative financial institution and the largest building society in the world with over 16 million members. Its headquarters are in Swindon, England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bradford & Bingley</span> Defunct British bank

Bradford & Bingley plc was a British bank with headquarters in the West Yorkshire town of Bingley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bridgewater Associates</span> U.S. based investment management firm

Bridgewater Associates, LP is an American investment management firm founded by Ray Dalio in 1975. The firm serves institutional clients including pension funds, endowments, foundations, foreign governments, and central banks. As of 2022, Bridgewater has posted the second highest gains of any hedge fund since its inception in 1975. The firm began as an institutional investment advisory service, graduated to institutional investing, and pioneered the risk parity investment approach in 1996.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Savings and Investments</span> United Kingdom government non-ministerial department

National Savings and Investments (NS&I), formerly called the Post Office Savings Bank and National Savings, is a state-owned savings bank in the United Kingdom. It is both a non-ministerial government department and an executive agency of HM Treasury. The aim of NS&I has been to attract funds from individual savers in the UK for the purpose of funding the government's deficit. NS&I attracts savers through offering savings products with tax-free elements on some products, and a 100% guarantee from HM Treasury on all deposits. As of 2017, approximately 9% of the government's debt is met by funds raised through NS&I, around half of which is from the Premium Bond offering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aegon UK</span>

Aegon UK (Aegon) is an Edinburgh based financial services provider specialising in pensions, investments and insurance.

Chelsea Building Society is a trading name of Yorkshire Building Society based in Bradford, West Yorkshire. Chelsea merged with the Yorkshire in 2010, at which point Chelsea was the fourth largest building society in the United Kingdom, with assets in excess of £13 billion and 35 branches, mainly in the southern areas of England, particularly in London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moneysupermarket.com</span> British price comparison business

Moneysupermarket.com Group plc is a British price comparison website-based business specialising in financial services. The website enables consumers to compare prices on a range of products, including energy, car insurance, home insurance, travel insurance, mortgages, credit cards and loans. The company's subsidiaries include the Travel Supermarket and Moneysavingexpert websites. Moneysupermarket Group is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

Kent Reliance is a banking services provider and trading name of OneSavings Bank plc, based in Kent, England. It was founded in 1898 as the Chatham & District Reliance Building Society, changing its name to the Kent Reliance Building Society in 1986 following the merger with the Herne Bay Building Society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coventry Building Society</span> British building society based in Coventry

The Coventry Building Society is a building society based in Coventry, England. It is the second largest in the United Kingdom with total assets of more than £62 billion at 31 December 2023. It is a member of the Building Societies Association. The society has over 1.6 million saver-members and a further 460,000 borrower-members.

BeatThatQuote.com was a British price comparison site specializing in personal finance products. The site was disabled in 2013 after being acquired by Google.

BanxQuote was a provider and licensor of indexes and analytics, which were used as a barometer of the U.S. banking and mortgage markets. Its bank rate website and consumer banking marketplace featured daily updated market rates on banking, mortgage and loan products in the United States, until its exit in 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lloyds Banking Group</span> British financial institution

Lloyds Banking Group plc is a British financial institution formed through the acquisition of HBOS by Lloyds TSB in 2009. It is one of the UK's largest financial services organisations, with 30 million customers and 65,000 employees. Lloyds Bank was founded in 1765 but the wider Group's heritage extends over 320 years, dating back to the founding of the Bank of Scotland by the Parliament of Scotland in 1695.

The Children's Mutual is a United Kingdom-based financial savings and insurance provider aimed at children. It is the trading name of the Forester Fund Management Limited, part of Forester Life Ltd, which is owned by the Foresters Financial a mutual organisation.

JPMorgan Chase is an American multinational banking corporation with a large presence in the United Kingdom. The corporation's European subsidiaries J.P. Morgan Europe Limited, J.P. Morgan International Bank Limited and J.P. Morgan Securities plc are headquartered in London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gatehouse Bank</span>

Gatehouse Bank PLC (بوابة البيت) is a UK regulated Islamic bank headquartered in London, with additional offices in Milton Keynes and Wilmslow.

The Family Building Society is a trading name of National Counties Building Society, based in Epsom, Surrey, in the UK. It is a member of the Building Societies Association.

OakNorth Bank is a UK bank for scaling businesses that provides loans and both business and personal savings accounts. The bank, which gained regulatory approval in early 2015, was founded by entrepreneurs Rishi Khosla and Joel Perlman, who had previously founded Copal Amba. The bank focuses on providing loans of £0.5m–£25m as well as savings accounts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simplii Financial</span> Banks of Canada

Simplii Financial is a Canadian direct bank and the digital banking division of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC). It offers no-fee chequing and savings accounts, a VISA credit card, Guaranteed Investment Certificates (GICs), mortgages and mutual funds. These savings and investment products are also eligible for registration under a Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA) or a Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP).

References

  1. Moneyfacts: About us Archived 2016-10-11 at the Wayback Machine
  2. "News - UEA". Archived from the original on 2019-10-11. Retrieved 2019-10-11.
  3. The West Morland Gazette: Second award for Cumbrian building society Archived 2016-08-19 at the Wayback Machine
  4. Bank of England: Bank of England Statement of Administrative Data Sources Archived 2016-08-16 at the Wayback Machine
  5. Moneyfacts Group: Products and Services Archived 2016-08-04 at the Wayback Machine
  6. Moneyfacts: Magazine Subscriptions Archived 2008-07-05 at the Wayback Machine
  7. Moneyfacts Group: Awards Archived 2016-07-19 at the Wayback Machine
  8. The Telegraph: Regular winners in surveys and banking beauty contests Archived 2018-10-05 at the Wayback Machine
  9. Alexa: moneyfacts Archived 2008-05-24 at the Wayback Machine
  10. The Observer: Cashpoints Archived 2017-02-02 at the Wayback Machine
  11. "Banks being slow to pass on savings rates - Hunt". BBC News. 2023-06-26. Retrieved 2023-07-19.
  12. "Fixed mortgage rates largely unchanged despite shock interest rise". Sky News. Retrieved 2023-07-19.
  13. "Bank of England hikes interest rate to 5% in highest figure in almost 15 years" . Retrieved 2023-07-19.
  14. Evans, Tara (2016-08-04). "What the Bank Rate cut means for your savings". The Telegraph. ISSN   0307-1235 . Retrieved 2023-07-19.
  15. Wright, Melanie; Collinson, Patrick (2016-03-12). "Personal savings allowance changes: should I still get a cash Isa?". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2023-07-19.
  16. FCA: Cash Savings Market Study Archived 2015-04-13 at the Wayback Machine
  17. Bank of England: Financial Stability Report Archived 2016-08-13 at the Wayback Machine
  18. Read, Simon. "Moneyfacts rebrands as Moneyfactscompare". www.financialplanningtoday.co.uk. Retrieved 2023-07-19.
  19. https://www.mortgagesolutions.co.uk/news/2024/04/24/moneyfacts-brings-out-market-information-tool-for-banks-and-building-societies/
  20. The Telegraph Moneysupermarket paid rival £3.9m Archived 2016-09-17 at the Wayback Machine
  21. Mortgage Strategy: Twist at the end of society soap Archived 2013-02-02 at the Wayback Machine
  22. BBC: Attack on money 'best buy' tables Archived 2008-09-21 at the Wayback Machine
  23. Sunday Times: Best deal is one zat pays us. Simples!