Latest news with #Flagstone
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘I retired from my six-figure banking job to be a tour guide'
This is the first in a series about early retirement: how our readers did it, and what they are doing now. Would you like to take part? Get in touch at money@ The only word on the exterior of St Paul's Cathedral is 'resurgam', meaning 'I shall rise again' in Latin. The discreet reference to the second coming of Christ is one David Harry is keen to point out to guests on his walking history tours of London. But Harry feels the motto also reflects a second coming of his own. 'It's a symbol for my ongoing change in career; my own rebirth, as it were.' For the past five years, the 61-year-old has been one of the capital's most prominent tour guides. Donning a stripey blazer, Hawaiian shirt and a Panama hat, Harry leads guests through London's forgotten back alleys and ancient landmarks to reveal a history 'you can't Google,' he says. His evenings are spent combing through his own extensive archive of old magazines, books and sundries to unearth forgotten chapters in London's storied past that can be related to his guests. This second career came after an early retirement from a stressful job in a bank. 'I can't believe how happy it makes me,' says Harry of his new role. 'I just love every minute of it. I am glad I made the decision to retire when I did and I can't believe how lucky I am.' Harry's life is unrecognisable from what it was before the pandemic. After almost 25 years in a corporate job, he retired in 2020 aged 55 and gave up his comfortable six-figure salary. Most people can only dream of doing this. Just 5pc of workers retired when they turned 55 last year, normally the earliest someone can access their pension pot, according to analysis by cash deposit firm Flagstone. The majority of workers retire at state pension age, which is 66 for both men and women and expected to rise to 68 by the middle of the 2040s. About one million people have continued to work full-time after hitting the current pension age, according to official figures last year. Fortunately for Harry, when he began his career in 1996 he signed on with one of the last remaining gold-plated private sector pension schemes. It meant the former Deutsche Bank vice president – who joined the German financial giant as a photocopy operator and worked his way up – retired with about £40,000 a year. 'I knew you could retire at 55 and I was in the final salary pension scheme, so I was very lucky indeed,' Harry says. 'My friend left [his job] and told me how much better life was outside the bank too. I realised I could afford to do it and if I did well as a tour guide I could live comfortably.' It was then that he decided to take the leap and hand in his notice. The money would serve as a safety net, Harry planned, allowing him to turn a hobby into a second career. Shortly after retiring, Harry's mother died, leaving him with a modest inheritance that allowed him to further cushion himself during the transition. He says she would have backed his decision to quit, having given him plenty of encouragement when he trained to become a magician. 'My mother had always been very supportive of me and she passed away between when I made my decision to leave the bank and hand in my notice.' He had qualified with the City of London as an official tour guide while working at Deutsche Bank and steadily built up his confidence in the role. 'I was moonlighting in the last few years before I made the jump,' Harry says. Years performing as a Magic Circle magician under the pseudonym 'the Delusionist' at corporate events in his spare time had also convinced Harry of his ability to hold an audience. 'I was already a performing magician so I had those presentation skills,' he says. Looking back on his time in the corporate world, Harry says he was 'institutionalised'. He adds: 'I had been there for 25 years, I didn't understand how much freedom could come from being self employed.' He says that overall he enjoyed his time with Deutsche Bank. 'They trained me up and paid me reasonably well.' Yet he recalls how the 'pressure from deadlines and enormous decisions' that came with his senior position 'wears you down' over time. 'Every morning I would wake up in terror before having to look at my inbox thinking what's the next thing I am going to be asked to do or look at.' The father-of-two soon saw a steady trickle of interest in his tours of London, building out a small following from his existing work tour guiding in the Square Mile. Despite losing 'about 60pc' of his salary, he soon qualified as a tour guide with the City of Westminster, receiving hundreds of positive reviews on travel website TripAdvisor. His first tours took guests to filming locations from the Harry Potter franchise, following the young wizard's journey through London from being dropped off by the purple Knight Bus in Borough Market to the Ministry of Magic entrance in Westminster. 'I started doing Harry Potter tours straight away,' says Harry. Other tours led by Harry focus on London's espionage history, following the footsteps figures like Ian Fleming and notorious Cambridge Five member Kim Philby. He says his success as a guide has matched the income from his pension, while he also sees healthy demand from corporate clients, for whom he creates bespoke tours, as well as occasional viral hits on TikTok. 'Two and a half years ago I posted a random video on TikTok and it went viral. Now I post every day about London stories, so TikTok pays me and I sometimes get recognised in the streets.' His best ever month on the video sharing platform earned him £1,000, after signing a monetisation agreement which pays content creators a small fee per 10,000 views they receive. A recent video of Harry's on the site attracted almost 200,000 views and delves into how an IRA bomb explosion in 1992 at the foot of the City's Gherkin had the effect of revealing the remains of a teenage Roman girl. A Latin inscription now marks her final resting place. 'Now I have got more work than I need and I have to turn it down,' says Harry. He is kept busiest in the summer months, when tourists flock to London. 'It's seasonal,' he adds. 'In the winter I can do two or three tours a week, and in the summer I have done up to three tours a day. But that's quite tiring.' Some of his favourite guests are Londoners. 'I love guiding Londoners because they've already got quite a lot of knowledge.' He adds he only wishes his mother could have seen how he has spent his retirement because he knows it would have won her approval. 'It's the one regret I have that she wasn't around to see what I have done with my career.' Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Daily Mail
17-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
What would REALLY happen if you didn't buy a daily coffee and saved the money instead?
The price of a takeaway coffee has soared in recent years. Some towns, especially those in and around London, have already seen the price of a takeaway coffee nudge beyond £4 and experts say we're just three years away from the £5 cup of coffee becoming the norm. And in the past decade, it has been repeated time and time again: 'Stop buying coffees out and you might actually be able to save some money' - or better yet, it's the answer to saving for a house deposit... second only to ditching the avocados. Now, savings platform Flagstone has crunched the numbers to see if the debate stacks up. It says the average daily spend on a takeaway coffee is £3.40, amounting to £102 a month. This is based on buying a takeaway coffee every day (not just the regular working week). If the money was diverted each month into a savings account and compounded annually at an interest rate of 4.5 per cent, it could add up to nearly £7,000 over five years. Putting £102 a month into a savings account compounding annually at 4.5 per cent over five years would grow to £6,849. This assumes that each monthly deposit earns interest at 4.5 per cent annually for five-years. The magic of compound interest, branded the eight wonder of the world by Albert Einstein, is to partly to thank for this. Compounding is the addition, repeatedly, of interest to the principal amount of a deposit. It describes what happens when you earn interest on both the money you initially deposit in a savings account, plus the interest you have already earned on that starting amount. If the same tactic was adopted for money spent on regular nights out, it could prove even more lucrative when it comes to helping to build up a savings pot. The average person splashes out £317 on nights out a month, according to Flagstone, making it one of the biggest black holes in monthly finances. If this sum were redirected monthly into a savings account instead, it would grow to £21,285 over the five years. The second highest earnings opportunity could come from doing more housework yourself and putting the money you would have spent on a cleaner into a savings account. While having a cleaner can save time, spending on cleaners rose by 9.4 per cent last year, driven by increases to the national living wage. Currently, the average monthly cleaning cost is £150. If this money was saved instead - and compounded at 4.5 per cent interest - you could earn an extra £10,072 after five years. People spend around on £237 average a month on meal kits, meal deals and takeaways. Putting this money into a high-interest savings account instead would save £15,914 over five years in a 4.5 per cent savings account. While cancelling subscriptions Subscriptions to Disney +, Amazon Prime, Audible and Apple TV and funnelling what you would save from this into a high-interest account would save between £536 and £537, per subscription, over five years. The table below allows you to see the daily spend, monthly spend and finally, how much it would save you over five years. If you were to stop spending on all of the above, you could save £76,479, if you placed the savings into a savings account offering 4.5 per cent interest. This figure relies on saving across all categories above. This is well over the average deposit on a new home, which is now around £53,414 Savers can currently get easy-access accounts payng 4.75 per cent, but this is likely to fall over the next six months as the Bank of England base rate is prediced to fall. Claire Jones, head of strategic relationships and new dusiness at Flagstone said: 'Spending on common items like nights out and coffees might not seem to have a huge impact on your bank balance. 'But reducing outgoings and redirecting that money to high-interest savings accounts could prove lucrative for individuals keen to focus on their wealth goals.'
Finextra
07-05-2025
- Business
- Finextra
Flagstone appoints former MoneySuperMarket executive as chief growth officer
The former Chief Customer Officer for MoneySuperMarket and MoneySavingExpert has joined Flagstone, the UK's largest savings platform* and the fintech engine behind the savings proposition for over 1,000 UK financial services providers, as Chief Growth Officer. 0 Darren Bentley brings to Flagstone two decades' experience of leading growth strategies for some of the UK's fast-growing, consumer-facing finance brands. Darren spent more than seven years at MoneySuperMarket (now Mony Group Plc), and was appointed to the executive team to lead marketing and growth strategies for the group's three chief brands: MoneySuperMarket, TravelSuperMarket and MoneySavingExpert. Between joining the business and stepping down as Chief Customer Officer in 2019, the group doubled EBITDA (to £129m) and its market cap tripled (to £2.2 billion). Darren joins Flagstone at a pivotal point in the company's growth trajectory. In 2024, Flagstone recorded its second consecutive year of profitability as revenue grew 48% to £55 million and the platform's assets under administration increased by £1 billion a quarter to end the year at £16 billion. In the same period, Flagstone customers generated cumulative returns of more than £500 million on their savings. Simon Merchant, Co-Founder & CEO of Flagstone, comments: 'Adding Darren to our executive team is a coup for Flagstone. In the last two years, Flagstone has achieved formidable growth and satisfied an enormous demand for better, simpler savings for hundreds of thousands of individual and business savers. But the job is only part-way done. Bank of England data tells us that three quarters of UK savers' money is languishing in low or no interest accounts**. Darren's experience and insight will help us invigorate more of these savers to take action with their money - particularly those for whom maximising returns on their money and minimising the risk of financial loss are equally imperative.' At Flagstone, Darren will oversee how the company increases the speed at which billions of pounds are added to the platform by savers every year. Working with marketing, data, product and technology colleagues, Darren will direct strategies around how Flagstone drives awareness of savings as an asset class in its own right, invests in digital marketing to reach the customers that Flagstone is best suited to support, and develops a superior user experience that customers don't ever want to give up. Darren Bentley, Chief Growth Officer, adds: 'Flagstone isn't just selling a great service, but waking savers up to a better way to achieve more with their money, with minimal risk and the simplicity of having access to hundreds of savings products in one place. But signing up more customers is only one of the key metrics for long-term sustained growth. Flagstone savers are trusting the business with their life savings. It's our duty to repay that loyalty with a first-rate experience and to continue to enhance our product and service.' Darren joins Flagstone from LumonPay, the currency exchange service serving 70,000 customers who transfer approximately £9 billion overseas across Europe and North America every year. Prior to Lumon Pay, Darren spent four years at online used car retailer, Cazoo, during which time the company reached £1.2 billion in revenue, selling 120,000 cars a year. Having achieved a second year of profitability and closed one of UK fintech's largest investment rounds in 2024, Flagstone is well positioned for significant growth. Over 2025 and into 2026, the company will launch a Cash ISA and hit milestones on its long-term product roadmap to automate a customer's savings process to maximise interest accrual and security protection. 'I'm thrilled to join a company with such a strong reputation for innovation and customer-focused product solutions,' said Leslie Witt, Chief Product Officer of AffiniPay. 'I look forward to collaborating with the talented teams at AffiniPay to amplify our impact and continue to set new standards of excellence while helping our customers achieve greater business success.' This appointment underscores AffiniPay's commitment to providing professionals with innovative technology to drive better business results. This addition follows the appointment of Nathan Waite as Chief Revenue Officer earlier this year.
Finextra
06-05-2025
- Business
- Finextra
Flagstone names Darren Bentley chief growth officer
The former Chief Customer Officer for MoneySuperMarket and MoneySavingExpert has joined Flagstone, the UK's largest savings platform* and the fintech engine behind the savings proposition for over 1,000 UK financial services providers, as Chief Growth Officer. 0 This content is provided by an external author without editing by Finextra. It expresses the views and opinions of the author. Darren Bentley brings to Flagstone two decades' experience of leading growth strategies for some of the UK's fast-growing, consumer-facing finance brands. Darren spent more than seven years at MoneySuperMarket (now Mony Group Plc), and was appointed to the executive team to lead marketing and growth strategies for the group's three chief brands: MoneySuperMarket, TravelSuperMarket and MoneySavingExpert. Between joining the business and stepping down as Chief Customer Officer in 2019, the group doubled EBITDA (to £129m) and its market cap tripled (to £2.2 billion). Darren joins Flagstone at a pivotal point in the company's growth trajectory. In 2024, Flagstone recorded its second consecutive year of profitability as revenue grew 48% to £55 million and the platform's assets under administration increased by £1 billion a quarter to end the year at £16 billion. In the same period, Flagstone customers generated cumulative returns of more than £500 million on their savings. Simon Merchant, Co-Founder & CEO of Flagstone, comments: 'Adding Darren to our executive team is a coup for Flagstone. In the last two years, Flagstone has achieved formidable growth and satisfied an enormous demand for better, simpler savings for hundreds of thousands of individual and business savers. But the job is only part-way done. Bank of England data tells us that three quarters of UK savers' money is languishing in low or no interest accounts**. Darren's experience and insight will help us invigorate more of these savers to take action with their money - particularly those for whom maximising returns on their money and minimising the risk of financial loss are equally imperative.' At Flagstone, Darren will oversee how the company increases the speed at which billions of pounds are added to the platform by savers every year. Working with marketing, data, product and technology colleagues, Darren will direct strategies around how Flagstone drives awareness of savings as an asset class in its own right, invests in digital marketing to reach the customers that Flagstone is best suited to support, and develops a superior user experience that customers don't ever want to give up. Darren Bentley, Chief Growth Officer, adds: 'Flagstone isn't just selling a great service, but waking savers up to a better way to achieve more with their money, with minimal risk and the simplicity of having access to hundreds of savings products in one place. But signing up more customers is only one of the key metrics for long-term sustained growth. Flagstone savers are trusting the business with their life savings. It's our duty to repay that loyalty with a first-rate experience and to continue to enhance our product and service.' Darren joins Flagstone from LumonPay, the currency exchange service serving 70,000 customers who transfer approximately £9 billion overseas across Europe and North America every year. Prior to Lumon Pay, Darren spent four years at online used car retailer, Cazoo, during which time the company reached £1.2 billion in revenue, selling 120,000 cars a year. Having achieved a second year of profitability and closed one of UK fintech's largest investment rounds in 2024, Flagstone is well positioned for significant growth. Over 2025 and into 2026, the company will launch a Cash ISA and hit milestones on its long-term product roadmap to automate a customer's savings process to maximise interest accrual and security protection.
Forbes
28-03-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Flagstone Review 2025
Flagstone is an FSCS-protected online savings platform on which savers can compare, open and manage as many accounts as they like in one place. Must deposit at least £10,000 Higher rates may be available elsewhere No ISA options No smartphone app Open and manage unlimited savings accounts with a single sign-up 100+ exclusive savings rates from 60+ providers All UK-based banks are eligible for FSCS protection Flagstone is an online savings platform, which enables customers to browse, open and manage multiple savings accounts using one platform, with one password. Flagstone has partnerships with more than 60 UK banks and building societies, allowing it to negotiate competitive rates for savers – many of which are exclusive to the platform. Sign-up is free and savers can open as many accounts as they like with several different types on offer – more on this below. Since its launch in 2013, Flagstone has helped UK savers place more than £15 billion into savings accounts. In 2024 alone, Flagstone clients earned more than £500 million in interest. However, since Flagstone does not offer access to the whole savings market, more competitive rates could sometimes be available elsewhere. Does Flagstone charge fees? Flagstone makes its money by taking a small share of the interest clients earn on savings accounts opened through the platform (up to 0.30%). This share is already accounted for in the returns offered by Flagstone – so the rate you see is always the one you get. Besides this, there are no admin, management or platform fees for customers to pay. What kind of savings accounts does Flagstone offer? Savers can open several types of account through the Flagstone platform: instant access – which allow savers access to cash at any time which allow savers access to cash at any time notice accounts – which require savers to give notice before making a withdrawal, typically of between 30 and 120 days which require savers to give notice before making a withdrawal, typically of between 30 and 120 days fixed term accounts – which mean savers forego access to their cash for a given period of time in exchange for a fixed rate of interest. Once the account is open, no additional deposits or withdrawals are permitted until the end of the term. Who can open a Flagstone account? To open an account with Flagstone, you'll need to meet the following criteria: be at least 18 years old be a UK resident have a UK current account make an initial deposit of at least £10,000. How to use Flagstone To open an account with Flagstone, you'll first need to fill in an online application form. You will be prompted to enter some personal details as well as your email address and phone number. Next, you'll need to deposit at least £10,000 into your Flagstone holding account, which can be carried out via bank transfer or online payment. Once the deposit lands in your account, you can then browse more than 200 savings options, and spread your cash between as many different accounts as you like. Flagstone will pass along your details to each bank on your behalf, so there's no need to make additional applications. Once up and running, you can view your balances, make withdrawals (where permitted) and open extra accounts at any time. If you've chosen a fixed rate account, your funds will land back in your Flagstone holding account once it's matured. From here, you can deposit the cash into a new savings product, or withdraw it to your linked current account. How is my money protected with Flagstone? Every UK bank and building society that offers savings accounts through Flagstone is a member of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). This means money held with each provider are protected up to the value of £85,000 per client, per banking group should the platform fail. This doubles to £170,000 for joint accounts. Flagstone's holding accounts – provided by HSBC – are also covered by FSCS protection. Is Flagstone right for me? For time-poor savers, keeping track of multiple accounts and rates can become a hassle, so a platform such as Flagstone could offer a solution. Its user-friendly interface allows savers to open, manage and monitor accounts with several different providers using a single username and password, and without the need to start an application from scratch every time you need a new savings account. Through partnerships with banks and building societies, Flagstone can also help savers find competitive deals that might not be available elsewhere. But, although it works with a wide range of providers, Flagstone does not cover the entire savings market. This means higher rates may be available elsewhere – especially given that Flagstone takes a small amount of interest from each account. That said, with more than 60 partner banks, Flagstone does work with more of the market than any comparable platform (Raisin, Bondsmith, Hargreaves Lansdown Active Savings or Insignis). It's also worth noting that cash ISAs, a type of tax-free savings account, are not yet available through Flagstone. And for digital-first savers, Flagstone's lack of a dedicated mobile app could be a drawback. Finally, savers with less than £10,000 to deposit will need to look elsewhere. What are the alternatives? Flagstone could be a great fit for savers who want to open and manage multiple accounts with a single log-in – but it's not your only option. In our guide to the Best savings platforms, we explore a few alternatives and dive into more detail about how they work.
