Moneyfacts

Moneyfacts
Financial services
Founded 1988
Headquarters Norwich, Norfolk, UK
Key people
 John Woods (Chairman); Marcus Rudd (Managing Director)
Number of employees
 over 80
Website www.moneyfactsgroup.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.

History

Moneyfacts was founded in 1988 by current chairman John Woods. It was first launched as a six-page monthly factsheet 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 (Moneyfacts.co.uk), product Analyser 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.[2] Moneyfacts Data is used throughout the UK Financial Industry. It is used by the Bank of England,[3] British Bankers Association, Building Society Association, Council of Mortgage Lenders, Financial Conduct Authority, Financial Ombudsman Service, HM Treasury, Prudential Regulatory Authority, by virtually every Bank and Building Society in the UK and it powers many of the UK’s financial comparison websites.

Product chronology

Activities

Moneyfacts' main activities are:[4]

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.[15]

In 2007, the "best buy" tables used in the UK press were criticised by Mike Lazenby, the then 'maverick'[16] 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:[17]

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,[18] 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.

References

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 8/18/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.