31 March 2026 – LONDON Finimize today announces the launch of The Finimize Awards, the first investment awards in the UK judged solely by retail investors.

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Thousands of Finimize members from its community of over one million are voting in the awards and will recognise the platforms, products, and services that investors actually use and value – free from the influence of sponsorship or paid entry. Winners will be announced in June.

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Many existing awards programmes require companies to pay to enter and rely on opaque judging processes. The investors these products are built for have never been asked for their opinion.  As a result, a “Best Platform” badge often tells retail investors little about trust or quality.

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The Finimize Awards are designed to flip that model on its head and rebuild it around the people it is meant to serve. Decided by a verified cohort of active UK retail investors with a methodology that is structured, weighted, and fully independent.

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Investors are asked to rate the platforms and products they actually use across value for money, ease of use, trust, customer experience, and likelihood to recommend. Winners are determined solely by survey scores and eligibility is determined by investor nomination, with a minimum response threshold. ‍

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Carl Hazeley, CEO of Finimize, said: “Financial services awards have become a walled garden, built on a commercial model that doesn’t serve real investors. Firms pay to enter, pay to attend ceremonies, and in many cases, pay to win. The result is an ecosystem where recognition is as much a marketing exercise as a meaningful signal of quality.

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“Investors deserve better. Awards should help people make confident decisions, not reward the biggest marketing budgets. Finimize has always been committed to rewriting the rulebook in favour of giving retail investors the information they need. Now, we’re passing the mic to investors – so they can recognise the products and services that truly serve them best.”

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The awards are built on three core principles:

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1. No pay-to-play

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There are no entry fees, paid submissions, or sponsored categories. Firms can choose to celebrate their win or support the event. They cannot buy success.

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2. Judged by investors, not insiders

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Instead of polished submissions or closed-door panels, awards will be decided by retail investors. Users will score platforms based on what matters most to them.

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3. Powered by real data

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Results will be based on large-scale investor surveys across all experience levels: from first-time investors to seasoned participants. The full methodology will be published in advance, alongside a transparent breakdown of results. This granularity shows why winners are succeeding and what runners up need to do to improve.

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Hazeley added: “Awards should be a shortcut to trust, not just another revenue stream. To date, financial services awards have been a murky business. If a company pays to win an award, then at best they’re short-changing the people they have a duty to serve – at worst, it starts to look like a scam.

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“The platforms that invest in better experiences, clearer products, and stronger trust should be recognised. For everyone else, honest feedback at scale is far more valuable than another trophy on the shelf.”

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Categories, as voted on by members, will include:

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• Best Investment Platform
• Best Value Platform
• Most Trusted Platform
• Best Range of Investments
• Best Customer Experience
• Best Crypto Platform
• Best ETF Provider
• Best Investment Fund
• Best Investment Trust
• Most Trusted Investment Product
• Best Crypto Investment Product
• Best Platform for New Investors
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About The Finimize Awards

The awards are based on large-scale survey data collected from thousands of retail investors within a community of over one million members, capturing user experiences with the platforms and products they actively use. Respondents evaluate services across multiple criteria—including value for money, ease of use, trust, customer experience, performance, and likelihood to recommend—using category-specific scoring frameworks with defined weightings.

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Eligibility is determined solely by investor nomination and minimum response thresholds to ensure statistical relevance, with all qualifying platforms and products automatically included and no application or entry fees required. Data is systematically cleaned and analysed in line with a fully published methodology. The entire process is strictly independent, with no commercial influence on outcomes: sponsorship does not affect scoring, and sponsors have no access to underlying data or results prior to publication. Winners are determined exclusively by aggregated survey scores and announced following the annual voting period.

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About Finimize

Finimize is the research partner for modern investors. With over 1 million engaged members, it is one of the largest retail investor communities globally.

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Each year, more than 70,000 members attend and host Finimize events and its premium product, Finimize Pro, offers deeper research, tools, and insight for investors looking to progress with confidence. Through its deep understanding of investor behaviour and needs, Finimize for Business enables more than 350 financial institutions to provide trusted content and insight that drives engagement, revenue, and retention.

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