Investing Insiders Weekly #9

Top Story

IS BRITAIN BACK? Finance chiefs view UK as ‘most attractive place to invest’

A new survey of finance chiefs of Britain’s biggest businesses found that the UK is now their preferred country to invest in, overtaking the US, Japan and the Middle East region. This time last year, the UK was in sixth place.

Deloitte, which conducted this survey, said it was in light of the sort-of UK/US trade deal made earlier this year, while also factoring in general chaos in the US, and rising oil prices and instability in the Middle East with the fresh conflict between Israel and Iran.

✔️The good news: Countries investing in the UK is great news for all of us as it helps to boost the economy and drive forward infrastructure projects. 

❌The bad news: There isn’t a great deal of bad news! However, increased interest from investors can push up the price of UK-based stocks and funds.

💡The takeaway: If you’re not sure where to invest, it could be worth looking closer to home and seeing what opportunities are on offer in the UK.

From the regulator…

NOT SO GOOD FOR MONZO: FCA fines bank £21m 

🤓In a nutshell: The financial regulator has fined Monzo £21 million over weak financial crime controls. That means it didn’t properly monitor whether customers were signing up with legit details.

What happened? Well, Monzo got REALLY popular over the past few years – its customers ballooned from 600,000 in 2018 to 5.8 million by 2022. 

But its internal processes couldn’t keep up, leading to things slipping through the cracks… such as letting customers sign up with the addresses ‘Number 10 Downing Street’ and ‘Buckingham Palace’ or dozens of people registering at the same address. Righto.

Why does it matter? These kinds of errors mean that if there was proper criminal activity going on, such as money laundering, the identity of those involved might be impossible to verify. 

💡The takeaway: We all rely on banks doing their job properly to keep us all safe, but this penalty shows that even the big high street names aren’t always on top of everything. 

It’s important to keep yourself safe from ID theft and other criminal activity – use strong passwords and make sure your details are always up to date.

Chart Of The Week 📈

The ‘Magnificent Seven’ tech giants got their name for their consistently strong performance.

But a new chart is a reminder that the best investments are often overlooked.

Despite having nothing inherently ‘magnificent’ about it, Italian banking group UniCredit Bank has quietly outperformed the Magnificent Seven by a substantial margin.

Pensions Watch

Could you be missing out on nearly £10,000? We’ve found our family and friends an average of more than £9,000 each – and you could do the same.

This week, we’ve launched our new pension finding service in partnership with Gretel. It takes less than two minutes, you only need your name and address, and it costs you nothing. 

This is the easiest pension tracing service we could find, and we tested a LOT!

Since automatic enrolment began in 2012, every job change has come with a brand new workplace pension (unless you opted out). Fast-forward 13 years, and the result is staggering:

• £31 billion of pension money is currently unclaimed across the UK.
• Around 3 million “lost” pots are sitting idle, worth an average £9,468 each.

If you switched roles even once in that period, there’s a genuine chance that some of that money is yours.

Why does it matter? Most orphaned pots sit in default funds, often with high fees and low-return options that quietly eat into your future wealth. Reuniting with those savings lets you:

1. Move to better-performing, lower-cost funds
2. Consolidate multiple plans into one, so you can see your true retirement savings
3. Unleash compounding – the longer your money’s invested in the right place, the harder it works.

💡The takeaway

1. Click here.
2. Enter your name and current address to get started.
3. That’s it. Gretel’s secure search sweeps the major providers and flags any pots registered to you.

The whole process takes under two minutes and costs you nothing.

What happens next? Decide whether to leave, move or merge. We will walk you through every option in plain English. Review the results – you’ll see each provider and approximate pot size

Use our free Pension Performance Checker to compare fees, returns and risk level.

Spot The Difference…

We’re struggling to figure out which part of the Government’s website rebrand cost it half a million pounds… see what you think:

Deal Of The Week 💵

Lloyds Bank is offering a competitive £185 cash bonus if you switch to one of its Club Lloyds current accounts before 28 July 2025. 

The catches: You need to meet a minimum monthly deposit and transfer at least 3 direct debits from your old bank account.

One Minute Market Fix

Stock markets around the world are shrugging off Trump’s ongoing tariff chaos, as – in the words of the FT’s Robert Armstrong – they just don’t believe him any more.

The S&P 500 has hit fresh record highs over the past week, a stark contrast to when it plummeted in the wake of Trump’s first round of tariff threats.

💡The takeaway: While the news around Trump’s tariffs may sound alarming, the market is not as spooked. That’s good news for investors as it means your US investments aren’t going to look as volatile. Stick with it and don’t react to headlines.