Financial Expert is the home of responsible financial journalism. We host 500+ articles with a focus on personal finance topics like investing and the financial markets.

Founded in 2011 by Simon Oates (who remains editor-in-chief), Financial Expert is the UK investing website trusted by thousands of private investors. They return for book tips, theory updates and stockbroker recommendations.

The editorial stance of Financial Expert leans towards a low-cost passive investment approach. Although, in practice, the site hosts a diverse range of investing strategies. We aim to provide balanced insights into how private and professional investors alike generate excellent returns.

Our content generally falls into the following categories:

  • Personal finance news & topical content
  • How-to investing guides for beginners
  • Book reviews & shortlists
  • Investment platform comparisons
  • Investment theory

Read more about ways to partner with Financial Expert, or contact us.

Overview of this page

  • Our footprint on the web
    • Web traffic
    • User engagement
    • Search engine authority
  • The wider media
  • What we stand for
    • We’ll never downplay risk
    • We’ll disclose ads
    • We’ll turn down bad deals
  • Editorial values & standards
    • Accuracy
    • Balance
    • Conflicts of interest
  • Sustainability
  • Legal
    • External links
  • Privacy

Our footprint on the web

Web traffic

In January 2022, Financial-Expert.co.uk saw 32,000 unique visitors, a new record.

  • 54% visits were from the UK,
  • A further 12% visits were from the US, Canada or Australia

User engagement

In that same time frame, our users:

Search engine authority

Financial Expert is a trusted authority on personal finance and investing topics. We feature in the top #3 organic search positions on Google UK for competitive finance search terms such as:

  • Financial expert (#1)
  • Compare stockbrokers (#1)
  • How to become an investor (#1)
  • Investing books (#3)
  • Free shares (#4)
  • Dividend growth investing (#1)

Search results are subject to change, results correct at the time of writing (30 October 2021).

The wider media

Simon has been quoted in the Daily Express, has provided fact-checking input to Channel 4 productions and has been invited onto the ITV News (ITN) sofa to discuss personal finance issues.

If you would like a quote from a financial expert on topical personal finance issues, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with Simon via email at [email protected].

What we stand for:

We’ll never down-play investing risk

We recognise that investing isn’t for everyone. Investing is all about finding your perfect balance between risk and reward. One cannot exist without the other, and achieving a high return without risk is effectively impossible.

Our risk appetite questionnaire and our guide to the time horizon of investments embody this principle. They can help visitors notice red flags which may suggest that investing wouldn’t be a good idea.

We write about simple & advanced investments alike. From boring bonds to busy business angels, from the best stocks & shares ISAs to the newest venture capital platforms. When writing about advanced topics, we add labels to content or include editorial to highlight that high-risk investments are only suitable for sophisticated investors.

We’ll always disclose ads & relationships

We occasionally write about books, courses and financial products. Some providers pay to be featured, which usually takes the form of a ‘cost per action’ or CPA affiliate programme. As an affiliate, Financial Expert may receive a commission if a user registers for a service and completes various actions.

We apply rigour and scrutiny when selecting providers to work with. There are literally 100s of stockbrokers and investing apps on the market. This allows us to choose our partners, rather than the other way around.

We’ll keep rejecting bad deals for our users

We reject proposals to work with financial providers we don’t think are a good fit for our users. This could be due to a lack of integrity, their regulatory status, consumer reviews or other factors.

There are several online stockbrokers which you’ll see regularly featured on other stockbroker comparison websites which we refuse to feature. These brokers look great on the front-end, but real customer experiences (as shared on review websites such as TrustPilot) show that a new client is unlikely to have an excellent experience.

Editorial values & standards

Accuracy

We rigorously fact check claims made in our articles and provide sources to data where feasible.

When covering tax topics, we prefer to link directly to HMRC guidance to allow readers to see the true source of the information and empower them to check that they are reading the most up-to-date guidance available.

Investing topics are clouded by the fog of uncertainty. Future returns are entirely unknown, taxes and laws can change, and ‘black swan’ events tend to upend prevailing trends. This makes financial journalism difficult. If we speculate or make a projection about the future, even if supportable by the facts, it cannot be demonstrably ‘true’ in the sense that there are always a number of different possible outcomes. We attempt to reflect this in the tone of voice used on Financial Expert, to encourage doubt and discourage ‘reckless certainty’.

Balance

We give credence to UK government-supported authority sources such as:

  • The Money Advice Service
  • The Pensions Advisory Service
  • The Financial Conduct Authority
  • HMRC guidance

We refrain from making unverifiable claims about the future performance of investments and apply caution when discussing new or hyped topics, such as investing in bitcoin, hedge funds or forex. This is in recognition of the warnings by the FCA that young investors in particular often take on greater financial risk than they can tolerate.

We include all risk warnings as a matter of course when discussing or featuring higher risk products. These risk warnings may be included within the body of an article, positioned underneath a call to action, or inserted in the footer of the website.

We also deliberately feature some great financial products in our comparison tables even if they don’t pay Financial Expert a commission.

Conflicts of interest

We feature an on-page disclosure if a financial product or service is being promoted as part of an affiliate scheme, where Financial Expert could receive remuneration in return for featuring it.

Although Financial Expert does contain opinion pieces, these are clearly labelled and any ownership stake in investments being discussed is disclosed within the piece in line with industry best practice.

We apply the same guidelines to all articles published on the website, whether the content was written by the editor in chief, staff or was sourced from a third party.

Sustainability

Positive climate impact

Financial Expert is carbon-negative. We can say this because we direct 100% of our display advertising revenue to fund tree planting and certified carbon offset projects via our sustainability partner Ecologi.

You can check on our tree-planting progress via our profile on their platform here, or visit our blog for updates on our progress towards our ambitious goal of planting 10,000 trees by 31 December 2022.

Financial Expert and Financial-Expert.co.uk is a trading name of Financial Expert Media Ltd, a company registered in England (Registered no. 13284322).

We are a news/opinion/media company and do not fall under the supervision of the Financial Conduct Authority.

We are not authorised to provide financial advice, as we make clear in our prominent disclaimer and repeat in our articles throughout. We have produced a totally impartial guide to finding an independent financial adviser, to help those investors who are looking for tailored advice from a qualified professional.

External links

Financial Expert regularly links out to external websites, such as news pieces, the product pages of financial service providers. Financial Expert has no control over the editorial content or media hosted by third party websites, and cannot be held responsible for any errors, or another issue present on other websites.

Privacy

We take GDPR compliance seriously. Beyond data users enter into our comment forms or send to us via email, we do not personally collect or process personal data. However, our advertising and web-traffic analytics service providers do serve web cookies and collect personal information in the course of providing their services. See our full privacy policy for our GDPR-compliant statement.