Financial advisers have reported a huge upsurge in environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing among their clients over the past 12 months.

Cult Wines, a specialist in fine wine investment, has published its Q1 2021 report, revealing its latest fine wine investment outlook.

Easy access and notice accounts may well be ideal savings vehicles for those who have spare cash to put aside, particularly those who are not confident to invest in more risky ventures. 

The value of UK buyout deals by high-net worth investors (HNWs) shot up by 626 per cent in 2020, rising from GBP132 million in 2019 to GBP958 million, says Boodle Hatfield, a private wealth law firm. The increasing number of buyout deals led or co-funded by HNWs goes against the overall decline in deal value across the wider private equity market over the same period.

As more people look to make a positive influence on society and the environment with their investments, impact investing is becoming an increasingly common practice  among retail investors. The size of the impact investing market has grown by 42.4 per cent and as of last April is worth USD715 billion, compared to USD502 billion in 2019.

A recent Scottish Widows study has found that around 90 per cent of 11 to 18-year-olds believe they should be taught about pensions at school to help them in the future.

New research published by online investment service Wealthify has exposed a confidence gap among UK savers, with 72 per cent saying they are “not confident enough” to try investing their money. Only 16 per cent of  people with GBP5,000 or more already in savings but no investments had considered investing in the past twelve months, despite 58 per cent having saved more since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Some 60 per cent of wealth managers, fund managers and other institutional investors in the UK say because of shrinking coverage of micro caps from brokers and analysts, it is becoming harder to identify ‘hidden gems’ in the sector. 

One-third of Brits (32 per cent) don’t know how to check their credit score, leaving them open to possible identity fraud and a lack of financial awareness.

Over half (53 per cent) of wealth management clients are willing to pay more for personalised service, according to the 2021 EY Global Wealth Research Report.