Welcome to Business Spotlight, where we shine a light on our members and learn about their business, ambitions for the future, as well as the challenges they’ve overcome and the passions that drive them. This edition features Jess Trueman, head of business development at Smart Money People.
Tell us about your organisation and what makes it different from others in your sector.
Smart Money People is the UK’s most comprehensive financial services review site, with over 2.3 million reviews (and counting), helping consumers make smarter financial decisions.
As we focus solely on financial services, our platform offers tailored insights and benchmarking designed specifically for the industry. The depth and breadth of data we capture goes beyond mere star ratings, helping companies gain a deeper understanding of customers and intermediaries.
The data we collect can also be used to evidence Consumer Duty outcomes, with net promotor scores (NPS) included as standard – the universally recognised loyalty metric.
Plus, unlike other review sites, our business users benefit from unlimited review invites and unlimited team access, empowering companies to grow their review numbers and easily manage their customer feedback.
When, how, and why was Smart Money People founded?
Smart Money People was founded in 2014 by a former management consultant who felt that other review sites were too generic for the financial services sector.
By 2016, we’d launched our prestigious awards – British bank awards, Consumer credit awards and Insurance choice awards to celebrate the very best of the UK’s financial services sector. Jacqueline Dewey joined us as CEO in 2020 following a successful career of delivering change within the financial services industry and in 2023, led the team through our biggest rebrand since we began.
In 2023 we acquired Be Clever With Your Cash, an award-winning money site. Be Clever With Your Cash shares news, hacks and guides on how to make the most of your money, across our website, podcast, YouTube channel and more.
Why did Smart Money People join the Council?
Smart Money People joined the Equity Release Council to support the growing number of people borrowing into later life and retirement. As demand for later life lending continues to rise, it’s essential that financial service companies have access to clear, actionable insights to better serve this demographic.
With extensive experience and data in the mortgage sector, Smart Money People is well-placed to help companies understand the needs of older borrowers and improve customer outcomes. Joining the Equity Release Council allows Smart Money People to be at the heart of this dynamic and expanding market, contributing to industry discussions and sharing valuable feedback from real customers.
How might your services benefit other members and/or their clients?
Smart Money People provides financial services companies with valuable insights to help them better understand brokers and consumers.
For Equity Release Council members, this means understanding whether brokers feel they’re equipped with the tools they need to serve their clients effectively and gaining deeper insights into the needs of later life borrowers themselves. This allows companies operating in this sector to tailor their products and services accordingly.
By working with later life lenders to survey their brokers for insights, as well as capturing and analysing real customer feedback, Smart Money People enables companies to improve customer satisfaction and build trust. Our benchmarking data helps members measure performance against their competitors.
What are the greatest opportunities and challenges facing your business and the sector at the moment?
One of the biggest opportunities for Smart Money People is the growing demand for financial services companies to access a suitable and straightforward solution for evidencing Consumer Duty outcomes – which we offer.
Plus, we’re seeing an increasing demand for companies to gain insights for specific customer groups, such as those in vulnerable situations. Our bespoke surveys allow companies to gather sensitive feedback securely, without the results being published on our platform.
In terms of challenges relevant to the equity release sector, as more people borrow into later life, there’s clearly a need for companies to better understand the needs of this demographic. So, as an industry, we need to ensure that the insights collected from the likes of Smart Money People leads to meaningful change.
Where do you see your business in five years?
In five years, we aim to have strengthened our status as the UK’s leading financial services review site – with even more reviews captured.
Having experienced immense growth over the last few years, we see a significant increase in companies using Smart Money People as their preferred review platform. As we focus only on financial services, we’re the logical choice for companies in the industry to manage reviews, gather insights, and evidence Consumer Duty outcomes.
We also anticipate increasing demand for our already popular bespoke surveys, enabling companies to better understand and serve specific customer groups.
Is there anything else you would like to tell us?
Our bi-annual Mortgage Lender Benchmark is the UK’s largest broker feedback survey, providing in-depth analysis of the mortgage market The report features in-depth coverage of how brokers see the later life market – at a sector and company level.
The latest H2 2024 edition (released in December) included insight from 987 brokers, who we asked to leave feedback for the last five lenders they’ve placed cases with. This means that we received over 4,755 individual pieces of feedback from intermediaries, with coverage across 116 UK lenders.
Our H1 2025 Mortgage Lender Benchmark will be released in June.
The views of contributors are not necessarily those of the Council
