Nationwide has launched an exclusive fixed-rate savings account offering a 5.3% interest rate, which is the highest-paying option on the market right now.

The building society’s new 30-month Member Exclusive Bond is available to existing Nationwide and Virgin Money customers.

You need to have had a personal current account, mortgage, savings account or business savings account or loan open with either of the two brands since November 2 2026.

Anna Bowes, personal finance expert at financial planning firm The Private Office, said: “It’s good to see a provider rewarding loyalty rather than paying the best rates to new customers only.

“We know that not enough savers regularly switch providers, so having the chance to earn a market-leading rate as a loyal customer is refreshing, especially from a high street brand.”

Savers can add a maximum of £10,000 into the Nationwide bond, which can be opened via the Nationwide website or through internet banking. You can also open an account in a branch, known as the Member Exclusive Branch Bond Issue 2.

Money must be deposited into the account within 14 days of opening it and you can only open one account per person.

Interest is credited annually and paid at the end of the 30-month term. Once opened, you can’t access the money inside the bond until it matures.

How does Nationwide’s bond compare?

Nationwide’s 30-month bond has the highest rate of all three-year fixed-rate bonds currently on the market, based on data from price comparison website Moneyfactscompare.

Afin Bank, GB Bank and Secure Trust Bank come close, offering rates of 5.28%, 5.28% and 5.27%, respectively. All of these accounts are FSCS-protected.

Nationwide’s bond is also joint-top of the best buy tables across two-year fixed-rate bonds, with RCI Bank UK’s account paying 5.3% and Afin Bank and GB Bank’s two-year deals both paying 5.28%.

The 30-month bond also currently has the top headline interest rate compared to four-year bonds. Market Harborough Building Society is offering a four-year bond with a 5.25% rate and Aldermore has a four-year fixed deal paying 5.17%.

Jessica Sheldon, deputy digital editor, MoneyWeek, said: “The tax rate on savings interest is rising by four percentage points from April 2027, making it all the more important for savers to consider if their money is better in an ISA, even if it means missing out on a higher headline rate.”

Would it be better to open a top-rate ISA?

Nationwide’s 30-month bond might be top of the market, but any savings interest you earn is taxable. If you are likely to exceed your savings tax allowances, it could make more sense to put the money into an ISA.

Based on calculations by wealth management firm Evelyn Partners, someone putting £10,000 into Nationwide’s 30-month bond on November 3 would earn £1,381.92 in gross (pre-tax) interest, with the bond maturing in May 2029.

Using the new savings tax rates announced in the 2026 Autumn Budget which take effect from April 2027, this is how much tax would be owed in May 2029 depending on your marginal tax rate:

Source: Evelyn Partners. Calculations are based on tax rates and allowances remaining unchanged, the individual staying in the same tax band and no other interest using up their personal savings allowance.

Based on MoneyWeek research, there are no 30-month fixed-rate ISAs on the market to directly compare to Nationwide’s 30-month fixed-rate bond.

However, at the time of writing, one two-year and three three-year fixed-rate cash ISAs are on the market paying 5.15%.

If you instead put the same £10,000 into a two-year ISA which paid 5.15% annually, with interest compounded yearly, you’d earn £1,056.52 in interest tax-free over two years.

Meanwhile, if you put £10,000 into a three-year ISA at the start of the term, and it paid 5.15% annually, with interest compounded yearly, you’d get £1,625.93 interest tax-free over three years.

This means a higher rate and additional rate taxpayer would actually receive more interest, after factoring in tax, from the two and three-year fixed-rate ISAs paying 5.15% interest.

David Little, partner in financial planning at Evelyn Partners, said: “Nationwide's 5.30% bond looks attractive on paper, but savers need to consider what they will actually keep after tax.

“For higher and additional rate taxpayers, a slightly lower headline rate within a cash ISA could ultimately deliver a better tax-free return. The highest advertised rate is not necessarily the most rewarding once tax is taken into account.”

Concerns over the scale of capital expenditure on artificial intelligence by the industry’s biggest tech companies have seen trillions of dollars wiped off their combined market valuation.

Between its peak on 6 October and the end of the month, the Nasdaq 100 dropped by more than 9%. Estimates put the market value of these losses at around $5 trillion.

“For three years, tech giants only had to announce investment in artificial intelligence (AI) to be rewarded by the stock market,” Grégoire Kounowski, head of advisory at wealth manager Norman K. observed. “That is no longer the case. The third-quarter earnings season marks a turning point: investors now want to know when this spending will pay off, and how it will be financed.”

AI’s biggest names – especially hardware providers like Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) – have seen surging profits and their market capitalisations boom as spending on AI infrastructure has soared.

But investors are becoming increasingly sceptical over the sustainability of these increased AI profits, and appear ready to penalise businesses that can’t demonstrate clear returns on their AI investments.

Has AI cannibalised Google Search?

The rout began when Google’s parent company Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) reported its results for Q3 of 2026 on 28 October. Diluted earnings per share (EPS) fell 26.1% year-on-year to $2.12 – well short of analyst forecasts of $3.02.

Although Google Search volumes reached record levels, revenue growth in the segment slowed to 12% from 17% in the previous quarter – suggesting that Google’s own AI overviews may be hurting its ability to monetise its core product.

Alphabet’s shares tumbled by 12.6% the following day and lost a further 1.4% on 30 October.

“Alphabet saw $463 billion wiped off its market value [in a single day],” said Dan Coatsworth, head of markets at wealth manager AJ Bell. “Alphabet’s results could go down in history as a major turning point in the AI story. They showed another quarter of cash burn and that AI summaries on search were affecting advertising revenue. The bear case many had dismissed is now becoming a reality.”

Alphabet was joined by Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) which fell by 28.6% on 30 October, following an alarmingly bleak forecast for Q4 accompanying its Q3 results the previous evening.

“The gigantic declines we’ve seen this week in shares such as Alphabet and Intel suggest that investor sentiment has been turned on its head,” said Coatsworth. “Current price action implies tech investors want to jump off the treadmill rather than slow it down.”

How do investors feel about AI?

The longevity of the AI stock market boom will largely depend on how the market sees the potential of the technology.

Research from the Association of Investment Companies (AIC), an industry body representing the UK’s investment trusts, indicates that investors are more negative than positive at present, despite recognising some of the technology’s long-term potential..

Based on a survey of 400 private investors and 200 intermediaries, the AIC found that misinformation (74%), job losses (73%) and loss of human skills (72%) are the top three concerns investors have about AI. Loss of privacy and increased pressure on water resources were also of concern to 51% and 45% of respondents, respectively.

“Given the apocalyptic warnings from AI companies themselves, it’s no surprise that investors are concerned about potential negative impacts of AI,” said Nick Britton, research director at the AIC. “We’ve also seen waves of AI-related job losses reported in the news, while actual or potential benefits of AI remain more distant and hypothetical for most people.

“As long as the AI investment boom continues and investors are making money, such fears may be overlooked,” Britton continued. “But if there is a market correction then AI companies may have to work harder to persuade investors that they can deliver growth while addressing their wider concerns.”

However, 68% said improved access to healthcare and medical breakthroughs was positive.

Will the AI boom recover, and should you invest?

This isn’t the first time that investor sentiment has led to AI selloffs over the last four years, and the market has recovered following every previous bout of pessimism.

Key to whether or not stocks recover will be upcoming earnings releases from the likes of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Palantir (NASDAQ:PLTR) and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD).

“What investors will want to see to avoid sell offs is a 'reasonable' amount of capital expenditure and growth beating expectations,” said Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at wealth manager Wealth Club. “That’s the sweet spot, growth without runaway spending.”

If you think the AI boom could recover then you could consider investing in an AI-focused exchange-traded fund (ETF), or an investment trust that focuses on technology such as the Allianz Technology Trust (LON:ATT) or Polar Capital Technology (LON:PCT).

Two Premium Bonds holders have woken up millionaires after NS&I’s latest monthly prize draw.

The Treasury-backed bank has revealed who bagged the two £1 million prizes in November, and the first winner is from Shropshire.

They won with the bond 652GW962089, which they bought in November 2025. They hold the maximum total of £50,000 in Premium Bonds.

The second winner from London secured the top prize with bond 175WW854599 which was bought in December 2010. They hold a total of £30,000 in Premium Bonds.

It comes as NS&I celebrates 70 years since Premium Bonds first went on sale.

Andrew Westhead, NS&I retail director, said: “Seventy years ago in November 1956, the first Premium Bonds went on sale, marking the beginning of what has become one of the nation’s best-loved savings products.

"It’s fantastic to celebrate this milestone with two new millionaires and generations of savers who continue to enjoy the excitement of checking if they have won tax-free prizes each month."

How many prizes will be distributed in November's Premium Bonds prize draw?

Millions more smaller prizes will also be shared out by NS&I this month, including 96 £100,000 prizes.

Meanwhile, 192 £50,000 prizes will be issued, as well as 385 £25,000 prizes.

Here is the breakdown of all the prizes that will be paid out this month:

Source: NS&I

How to check if you've won in October’s prize draw

The two £1 million winners are notified in person by NS&I’s Agent Million each month.

Winners of the £100,000 and lower Premium Bonds prizes can check if they have won the day after the first working day of each month. For November 2026, that date is 3 November.

You can do this by using the Premium Bonds prize checker app, visiting the NS&I website or via Amazon Alexa.

The prize checker app and website will show you prizes you’ve won that month, anything you’ve won in the previous six draws and any older prizes you haven’t claimed yet.

Make sure you have your bond number or NS&I number so you can access your account.

There is no time limit to claim an unclaimed Premium Bonds prize so you should check if you’ve won anything before and didn’t realise, even if you bought the Premium Bonds years ago.

NS&I reveals half-year results

NS&I unveiled its half-year results on 28 October.

They show that NS&I delivered £3 billion of net financing to the government in the three months to September 2026, bringing its half-year total to £4 billion.

NS&I’s target for the 2026/27 tax year is £15 billion, plus or minus £4 billion.

Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at investment platform AJ Bell, said NS&I was more likely than before to get close to its £15 billion target for 2026/27 due to two factors.

First, was a pick up in fundraising in the second quarter of 2026 following increases in interest rates across its savings accounts.

Second, was the four percentage point rise in savings tax taking effect from April 2027 making Premium Bonds more attractive for higher earners.

“For anyone paying tax on a chunk of their savings interest – particularly higher or additional rate taxpayers – the allure of Premium Bonds starts to make more sense, because of the tax-free status of the prizes,” Coles said.

“The relative attraction of Premium Bonds in this scenario could help boost the coffers of NS&I without it having to hike rates across its products again.”

Brazilian stocks and its currency have suffered a “Black Monday” following the surprise re-election of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the second round of presidential elections. The veteran left-winger's promise of a fiscal splurge is not going down well with investors, who sent the benchmark Ibovespa share index plunging nearly 14% on Monday, with the real currency selling off 8% against the dollar for its largest daily drop since 2002. That double-whammy sent the MSCI Brazil index, which is priced in dollars, down nearly 25%, a sell-off on the scale of the 1987 Black Monday crash on Wall Street, says John Authers on Bloomberg.

What does Lula's victory mean for Brazilian stocks?

Lula entered the second-round vote as the underdog after coming second in the first round behind Flavio Bolsonaro, his right-wing opponent. But polls always showed that the vote was close. The scale of the sell-off of Brazilian stocks says more about the political biases of stock and bond investors – who had priced in a 100% chance of victory for Bolsonaro – than it does about the scale of the electoral upset. Latin American markets have a persistent tendency to “freak out” whenever a left-winger wins, but this creates distortions and “buying opportunities” for the more dispassionate.

Lula's victory is “one of the most remarkable comebacks” in recent Brazilian history, says Viktor Szabo of Aberdeen Investments. Since the return to democracy in the 1980s, no candidate who trailed in the first-round has gone on to win in the second.

The victory was bought at the cost of a raft of populist economic promises, including a 15% rise in family benefits, a federal fuel tax holiday, a new monthly stipend for low-income university students, free public transport at weekends and a reduction in the maximum working week from 44 to 40 hours with no fall in pay.

Brazil has little room to pay for it all. Gross public debt stands at 83% – a high level for an emerging economy – and the deficit is close to 10% of GDP. The country also pays “one of the highest real interest rates in the world”. Interest payments in Brazil “eat up” roughly 35% of all current government revenue, Thierry Larose of Vontobel Asset Management tells Barron's.

Still, history suggests that investors are overreacting, says Sebastian Pellejero on Breakingviews. Lula has a pragmatic streak and his record is impressive. The economy grew more than 4% a year during his first two terms in the 2000s. And the Ibovespa remains 57% higher since he returned to office in 2023, even following the latest sell-off.

Lula faces a right-leaning Congress that will block some of his spending plans. And in an era of commodity inflation, Brazil's vast energy and agricultural reserves are driving rising trade surpluses. “For all its problems, there's... always some sun in Brazil.”

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

The highest earners face a near-50% tax rate on savings interest from April 2027 after chancellor John Healey launched a tax raid on savers.

Tax on savings income was already set to rise by two percentage points in April, but will now rise by four percentage points after Healey announced a further two percentage point rise in the 2026 Autumn Budget.

The move will bring savings tax rates to 24% for basic rate taxpayers, 44% for higher rate taxpayers, and 49% for additional rate taxpayers in the 2027/28 tax year.

You will normally be taxed on your savings when you earn interest from money held in a non-ISA savings account that goes over the amount you can have tax-free.

The main mechanism that allows people to earn savings interest outside an ISA without paying tax is the personal savings allowance.

The allowance is £1,000 for basic rate taxpayers, £500 for higher rate taxpayers. Additional rate taxpayers do not get the allowance.

People on incomes lower than £18,570 can also earn up to £5,000 extra from savings interest tax-free thanks to the starting rate for savings. This £5,000 allowance is reduced at a rate of £1 for every £1 you earn in non-savings income over £12,570.

Bear in mind that savings interest counts towards your taxable income. Interest earned could therefore tip you into a higher income tax band and potentially reduce or remove your personal savings allowance.

High earners with taxable income over £125,140 will be especially hit by the policy as any interest they earn on savings held outside a cash ISA will be taxed at 49%.

At the Budget, Healey said that despite increasing tax rates, “88% of people will pay no more tax on their savings”.

Isabella Galliers-Pratt, senior investment director at wealth manager Rathbones, said: “The decision to increase tax on savings income makes holding large amounts of cash on deposit increasingly unattractive, particularly for higher and additional rate taxpayers.

“Cash will always have an important role in providing liquidity, but the tax changes significantly alter the equation for money held beyond immediate needs. For an additional rate taxpayer facing a 49% rate on taxable savings income, a 4% savings rate would deliver just 2.04% after tax.

“For those holding substantial excess cash, that growing opportunity cost will become increasingly difficult to ignore.”

The table below shows how much more tax you can expect to pay on your savings interest after you use your tax-free savings allowances following next year’s changes.

Source: AJ Bell, assumes all interest shown is taxable, any available tax-free allowances have already been used, and the interest falls entirely within the stated band.

Cash ISA allowance changes axed

While tax rates are set to increase significantly on cash held outside an ISA, the silver lining for cash savers is that chancellor John Healey decided to reverse the previous government’s unpopular ISA reforms.

The annual cash ISA limit was set to fall from £20,000 to just £12,000 for under 65s from April 2027, but Healey reversed these changes at the Budget, meaning it will stay at £20,000. This is the overall annual ISA allowance, and contributions can be split across different types of ISA.

How to avoid paying tax on your savings interest

With tax rates on interest earned outside an ISA rising, keeping cash in a tax-wrapper will become more important than ever for savers.

We look at what you can do to avoid paying tax on your savings interest.

Check your personal savings allowance

Your personal savings allowance lets you earn a set amount of savings interest from a non-ISA before any tax is due.

Before you put money into a savings account, you may want to calculate how much interest you expect to earn from your deposit and see if it will exceed the tax-free allowance.

If the interest you expect to receive is within your allowance, then you will not need to do anything as your interest will not be taxed.

But if you find the deposit will earn more interest than your tax-free allowance, you may want to consider moving the money into a tax wrapper if you can.

If your income is very close to the next tax threshold, you should check whether your savings interest will push you into a higher tax band and cause your personal savings allowance to be reduced.

Put your cash into an ISA

Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs) are one of the most powerful tools savers have to protect their money from tax.

You can hold investments and/or cash in ISAs, and any growth you get from money held in them – whether it is interest payments or investment returns – is entirely exempt from income tax, capital gains tax and dividend tax.

Jason Hollands, managing director at wealth manager Evelyn Partners, said: “The looming tax increases on cash savings and already implemented hikes on [capital gains tax] and dividend taxes, make maximising ISA allowances incredibly important whether you’re a saver or an investor.”

You can only put a maximum of £20,000 into ISAs each year. You can put this amount into one type of ISA or divide it between different types, such as an investment ISA and a cash ISA.

That means if you use most of your annual ISA allowance for cash savings, there will be less left over to protect your investments from tax.

Hollands says you should review the balance of your wealth held between cash and investments.

“Having a cash rainy-day fund is very wise; it can help cover unexpected bills and avoid having to sell investments at the wrong time. But holding more cash than you need for several years can mean missing out on the potential for longer-term investment growth.

“The much tougher tax treatment of savings interest than gains on investments and dividend income is a further consideration. Of course, investments involve more risk as markets can fall as well as rise, so this course of action won’t suit everyone.”

Consider Premium Bonds

Premium Bonds are a savings product offered by government-backed savings bank National Savings and Investment (NS&I).

You don’t earn a guaranteed interest rate with this product. Instead, Premium Bonds holders are entered into monthly prize draws where you have the chance to win prizes between £25 and £1 million.

Every £1 you save in Premium Bonds translates into one entry into the monthly Premium Bonds prize draw and you can hold up to £50,000 in Premium Bonds.

Any Premium Bonds prizes you win are entirely tax-free, but as the prizes are distributed randomly there is no guarantee that your money will actually grow.

Consider alternatives to cash

Cash savings are popular because of their simplicity and safety. The money you hold in cash won’t fall in value, although it can be eroded by inflation.

If you are trying to avoid paying tax on your savings interest, and you already have an emergency savings pot in an easy access account, there are other options that offer cash-like returns and safety.

Galliers-Pratt at Rathbones said: “For money that is not needed immediately, investors may want to look more closely at alternatives, including short-dated, low-coupon gilts. While the coupon is subject to income tax, any capital gain on a gilt is generally free from capital gains tax for individual investors.”

Gilts are UK government bonds that are issued when the government needs to borrow money and can be bought by investors.

They are effectively an “IOU”. You buy a gilt and the government promises to pay the money back to you after a certain amount of time, including a fixed rate of interest called the coupon.

“At current yields, some short-dated, low-coupon gilts can offer a post-tax return of more than 4% for an additional rate taxpayer. Once the 49% savings rate [for additional rate taxpayers] takes effect, a savings account would need to pay more than 8% gross to produce a comparable net return,” says Galliers-Pratt.

“The message is not that people should abandon cash. It is about distinguishing between money needed for emergencies and short-term spending, and substantial excess cash that could potentially be working harder elsewhere.”

One of the more eye-catching measures announced in chancellor John Healey’s first Autumn Budget was the creation of a ‘Starter ISA’.

Little is currently known about this product, besides that it will be developed with the UK’s investment industry and will aim to encourage more Brits to start investing, but there is optimism that it could mark a more positive step than previous attempts to foster an investing culture.

“A Starter ISA could be a much more effective way of creating a new generation of investors than simply trying to push people out of cash,” said Isabella Galliers-Pratt, senior investment director at wealth manager Rathbones. “The real barriers to investing are often confidence, understanding and fear of losing money, rather than a shortage of tax-efficient products.”

The context for the Starter ISA

The UK is disproportionately a nation of savers. Despite the historical long-term outperformance of investments compared to savings, analysis from wealth manager Vanguard found that in 2024 34% of UK household financial assets were held in cash, compared to just 16% in investments.

In the 2025 Autumn Budget, then-chancellor Rachel Reeves sought to address this by reducing the annual deposit limit for cash ISAs to £12,000 for under-65s from April 2027 – with the goal of encouraging the remaining £8,000 of the total £20,000 per year annual ISA allowance to be invested in stocks and shares.

The policy attracted criticism for over-complicating the ISA system. Healey has scrapped it, confirming in his Budget that the annual cash ISA limit will remain at £20,000.

What might the Starter ISA look like?

Healey is not abandoning Reeves’s goal of getting more Brits investing. Instead of cutting cash ISA limits, a new ‘Starter ISA’ will be created which will, in Healey’s words, “reward first-time investors” and be developed in association with the investment industry.

The official government Budget document said the government will: “explore a new ISA incentive for people investing in a stocks and shares ISA for the first time. The detailed design will be developed with industry.”

So there is very little to go on at the moment in terms of what this product will look like and how it will get people investing, but the wording suggests that this will take the form of some kind of financial incentive to invest in a stocks and shares ISA over the cash equivalent – as opposed, for example, to a completely new ISA product.

Martin Lewis, founder of consumer finance site MoneySavingExpert, discussed the scheme in a post-Budget video in which he claimed to have spoken to Healey about incentivising people to start investing.

“My proposal for that was basically, you get a 10% uplift on the first £2,000 you put into a [stocks and] shares ISA,” said Lewis, who also claimed he would be involved in the government’s consultation with industry.

There is no clarity yet, though, whether this is the form the incentive will take.

“The detail will matter, but a meaningful incentive to make that first investment, alongside the right education and support, could help turn more savers into long-term investors,” said Galliers-Pratt of Rathbones. “That could take the form of a government top-up on an initial investment, for example, giving people a tangible reason to take that first step.”

“The focus should be on making investing feel accessible and worthwhile, rather than simply making cash less attractive,” she added.

Maintaining as much simplicity within the ISA system as possible is likely to be key to its success.

“As we consider the new Starter ISA, policymakers need to learn lessons from the complexity and unpredictability of changes to ISA rules in recent years,” said John Owen, chief executive of the Investment Association, an industry body that represents the UK’s fund managers. “We therefore urge the Government to now take a consistent, long-term approach to policy affecting ISAs to help people achieve greater financial resilience.”

Chancellor John Healey put the focus on addressing rising living costs when he announced the first Autumn Budget of his tenure.

Nestled within the Budget document and his speech on 28 October were a number of measures to help households with a higher cost of living and energy bills.

A series of policy changes affecting businesses were also confirmed including targeted support for the ailing high street, while measures will be introduced to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation.

Here are some of the major announcements made.

Defence spending

The government has committed to fully funding the £15 billion Defence Investment Plan, including £4.7 billion which was previously unfunded.

It means spending on defence spending will be worth 2.7% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2027/28.

The chancellor also pledged over £10 billion in additional economic and military support to Ukraine.

While the government will work with manufacturer Rolls-Royce on a joint 10-year £2.5 billion programme to develop gas turbine technology for civil and aerospace defence.

Taxes on businesses

A surcharge charged to banks on their profits will rise from 3% to 6% for 15 months, starting in January 2027.

Meanwhile the threshold at which high street shops start paying business rates in England will be increased from £12,000 to £18,000 from April 2027.

Vape shops and adult gaming centres in England will also no longer benefit from business rates relief from the same date as part of government efforts to “clean up” the high street and ensure support is targeted at shops, pubs and cafes, as well as other businesses.

Taxes on gambling machines will also be hiked from 20% to 25% for higher stakes machines, which allow gamblers to make larger bets, from next April.

The government has said it wants to close a tax loophole which allows foreign firms to sell services to some UK businesses without accounting for UK VAT.

Taxes on savers and landlords

Tax rates paid on income made from property or savings held outside tax-wrappered accounts will rise by a further 2% from April 2027.

The basic rate will go up to 24%, the higher rate to 44% and the additional rate to 49%.

Budget documents say 84% of income tax payers will be unaffected by the change, with the revenue raised from the move expected to come from the top 10% of households.

Energy bill and cost of living support

A £100 ‘Household Energy Payment’ will be made in the form of a council tax rebate to up to 20 million households in England from January 2027. The rebate will be issued to households in council tax bands A to D.

A further £100 million will be distributed among councils in England to provide targeted support to households most impacted by rising energy bills, some of whom are in council tax bands above A to D.

The VAT cut on electricity bills, which had already been announced by the government and was due to end on 31 March 2027, will be extended to 1 July 2027, taking £50 off the average energy bill.

From April 2027, over 10,000 energy-intensive businesses will have their energy bills cut by as much as 25% through the British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme (BICS).

Healey also confirmed the gas standing charge will be ditched, with the government hoping it can be abolished by the end of next year.

The National Living Wage will be increased by 3.9% to £13.21 an hour from the same date, adding £910 to workers’ annual wage.

The 5p freeze to fuel duty has also been extended to 1 July 2027 while the Gas Shipper Obligation, a new planned levy on gas bills to fund hydrogen projects, will be removed from energy bills and be funded by the government, subject to its commitment to the obligation.

Income tariffs on over 100 everyday food and drink products will be reduced, which the government says will save households up to £21 on their grocery shop per year.

Encouraging investment and entrepreneurship

The National Wealth Fund and British Business Bank will receive an additional £20.4 billion in government funding to boost investment and business growth in the UK. The National Wealth Fund will receive a further £15.4 billion.

The trading allowance, available to those making trading or miscellaneous income, will be tripled from £1,000 to £3,000 from April 2027.

Healey also said the government will launch a new ‘young entrepreneurs allowance’, which will cover a year of living costs for young business founders.

From next April, a new ‘Capital Gains Tax Founders’ Relief’ scheme will be introduced, offering a reduced 10% CGT rate on up to £10 million of lifetime gains.

Few details have been published, but Budget documents say venture capital schemes will be improved so founders can raise capital with “greater certainty”.

Housing

The government has committed to putting £4.7 billion towards the Your First Home scheme for first-time buyers which it estimates will help 70,000 people onto the property ladder.

Meanwhile £1.5 billion in funding will be put towards building social and affordable housing.

A further £432 million will be pumped into ending rough sleeping, one of the major pillars of Burnham’s premiership so far, over the next two years.

Plans have also been unveiled for a new first-time buyer ISA, while from today the Lifetime ISA withdrawal charge will be reduced from 25% to 20%.

Support for low-income pensioners

A new pension tax allowance will be introduced meaning some pensioners will pay less income tax.

From April 2027, if pensioners’ total income is more than the £12,570 personal allowance but less than the value of the full new state pension (£13,037), they will not pay income tax.

If their income is between £13,037 and £13,319, they will receive some allowance and pay some income tax, but less than they would have before the change.

Total income classes as income received from the state pension, private pensions, earnings from work, savings and property or dividend income, or a combination of some or all of these.

Cash ISA changes reversed

Healey ditched his predecessor Rachel Reeves’s proposal to reduce the annual cash ISA limit for under 65s from £20,000 to £12,000 from April 2027.

He also said he will work with the sector to create a new starter ISA to reward first-time investors.

More than a third of homes for sale are in postcode areas where house prices are falling, according to new analysis.

The combination of a high number of properties for sale and elevated mortgage rates is putting downward pressure on the housing market, the research by Zoopla found.

Annual house prices fell in 37 out of the 119 postcode areas the property portal tracks between September 2025 and September 2026, with the majority of these areas in southern England and London.

However, the picture is different in other parts of the UK, with property values rising by up to 5.8% in regions like Northern Ireland, Scotland and north west England.

Zoopla said house prices are rising in these regions as properties are generally worth less compared to the south of England and the impact of higher mortgage rates isn’t felt as strongly.

Richard Donnell, executive director at Zoopla, said: “The extra cost of mortgages has made home buyers more selective while greater choice of homes for sale has increased the scope to negotiate on price.

“The impact is being felt by sellers in southern England where house price falls are most concentrated as average prices continue to rise across the rest of the country.”

The postcode areas where house prices are falling

House prices fell in four regions in the year to September 2026, according to Zoopla’s analysis: London, south east England, east of England and south west England.

On a local level, just 10 out of the 37 postcode areas where property values dropped were outside the south of England and London.

House prices fell the most in west central London, steeply declining by 5.7%. They also fell by 4.3% in Llandrindod Wells, Wales.

In east central London, property values decreased by 3.8% in the year to September, and by 2.2% over the same period in Truro, south west England.

Zoopla’s analysis found 85% of homes in London and the south east of England are in postcode areas where property prices fell year-on-year.

Source: Zoopla

Stamp duty reform ‘could support buyers and sellers’

Donnell from Zoopla said the government could do a number of things to stimulate the housing market in the 2026 Autumn Budget.

He said the biggest boost it could provide would be to “create the conditions” for lower mortgage rates. If they went below 5%, activity would pick up again, he said.

Lenders have increased rates following conflict in the Middle East, which has contributed to inflation rising by 3.5% in the year to September.

The average two-year fix (on 27 October) is 5.97%, up from 4.83% on 27 February, a day before the US and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran, sparking the war.

Donnell also said another lever the government could pull is to reform the stamp duty land tax (SDLT) regime.

Zoopla research suggests extending the 2% rate to properties worth up to £500,000, from £250,000 currently, could save home movers up to £7,500 while similar reforms for first-time buyers could save them up to £6,000.

Donnell said SDLT changes “could support buyers and sellers, particularly in southern England where transaction costs are highest”.

How to sell your home in the current market

The first key thing to do to sell a home in a buyer’s market is to set the right asking price.

Zoopla analysis found that of the homes listed for sale between April and June 2026, 41% listed 5% or more below their estimated value found a buyer within 90 days, versus just 26% of those priced at least 20% above their estimated value.

It’s crucial to price well the first time around too. Zoopla also found just 19% of homes that had asking prices reduced sold within 90 days, compared to 41% of those where the sellers didn’t have to reduce the asking price.

How you present your home is also important. Tidying gardens, cleaning windows and ensuring outdoor spaces are well-lit will create a strong first impression.

Inside the home, make sure to declutter, check rooms are bright and spacious and address any minor issues such as leaking taps or flickering lights.

James Waight, head of sales at estate agent John D Wood and Co., said: “With competition between properties increasing, small improvements can make a real difference to how a home is perceived.”

Presentation of your home extends to how it will be perceived on estate agents’ and property portals’ websites too.

Waight added: “High quality photography, an engaging description and flexibility around viewings can help attract a wider pool of potential buyers. Sellers should also listen carefully to feedback from viewings and be prepared to respond if buyers consistently raise the same concerns.”

UK firms delivered over £28 billion in dividends in the third quarter of 2026, marking the highest payout since 2019.

The dividend total in Q3 2026 was up 14.1%, compared to the same time last year, providing larger payments for income investors, according to new data from financial administration firm Computershare.

Its dividend monitor report shows profit distributions were led by banks and mining firms – the sectors returned more than £8.3 billion to investors.

Underlying dividend growth in Q3 2026, which excludes volatile special dividends and exchange-rate movement, was better than expected, reaching 8.4%, the best third-quarter performance since 2019.

This quarter’s strong performance follows a record Q2 for UK dividends, during which UK companies paid out their all-time highest levels of dividends.

With two thirds of all dividends paid between April and September, strong growth during the second and third quarters will make up for a sluggish first quarter and an expected weaker final quarter.

Mark Cleland, CEO of issuer services at Computershare, said: “The pronounced strength of the third quarter has significantly boosted what is turning out to be a very positive overall picture for UK dividends in 2026.

“Resilient economic growth supported company revenues and profits, while higher-for-longer interest rates and the upswing in commodity markets have provided an additional boost to two of the UK market’s biggest dividend-paying sectors.”

Cleland warned that the fourth quarter of 2026 could see lower distributions, partially driven by drink giant Diageo’s announcement in February that it would slash dividends.

“However, with so much of the year’s dividend income already paid, we now anticipate dividends to finish comfortably ahead of 2025 and headline payouts to deliver their strongest annual growth since 2019,” he added.

What are the best sectors for dividends?

Mining was the best-performing sector for dividend growth, as payments soared nearly 90% – up from £2 billion in Q3 2025 to £3.9 billion in Q3 2026.

Higher commodity prices and stronger cash generation fuelled dividend growth from miners such as Rio Tinto, Glencore, Antofagasta and Fresnillo.

Meanwhile, the banking sector returned £4.4 billion to investors through dividends in Q3 2026 – marking a 24.5% increase from £3.6 billion in the same quarter last year.

Computershare said the strong dividend performance came after major banks increased ordinary payouts alongside ongoing share buybacks amid strong profitability and capital generation.

The top sectors for dividends are:

Source: Computershare

The top dividend stocks

The top five dividend stocks in the UK collectively delivered £8 billion to shareholders in Q3 2026, accounting for 28% of payouts in the quarter.

Rio Tinto led the way, followed by Shell, National Grid, Glencore, and British American Tobacco.

The top dividend stocks in Q3 can be found below:

Source: Computershare

What’s the outlook for income investors?

Strong dividend performance in Q3 has led Computershare to improve its outlook for 2026, which is set to be the best year for dividends since 2019.

Total dividends are expected to reach £93 billion, up 7.3% on 2025’s figure, while regular payouts (which exclude one-off payments) are forecast to reach £8.8 billion, up 4.8% on the year.

Computershare said the outlook has been improved due to stronger than expected UK economic growth and favourable stock market conditions.

Computershare said earnings across the wider market have remained robust and that it expects regular dividend payouts to finish the year comfortably higher than in 2025.

AJ Bell has slashed the fee on its ready-made personal pension, making it one of the cheapest fee-wise on the managed personal pension market.

The investment platform has today (14 October) reduced its annual charge from 0.45% to 0.35% for investors taking a hands-off approach.

The 0.35% fee is all-in, covering administration and investment charges, with investors facing no additional charges on transactions.

AJ Bell launched the ready-made personal pension in 2024, and now offers investors the choice of five growth funds based on their risk appetite.

AJ Bell manages the investments for you which can be helpful for those who are time poor or new to investing and don’t want the responsibility of managing their investments.

The ready-made pension also lets savers track down old pension pots and consolidate them into a single account.

Mahdi Shabir, lead insight analyst at Boring Money, a website providing advice on saving and investing, said: “AJ Bell's pricing change is both compelling and illustrative of the increased competition in the ready-made pension market.

“Following price reductions from both Moneybox and Hargreaves Lansdown in the past 12 months, AJ Bell has thrown down the gauntlet by reducing fees from 0.45% all-in to 0.35% for its ready-made pension.”

Is AJ Bell’s ready-made personal pension worth it?

Following the fee change, AJ Bell’s ready-made personal pension is now one of the cheapest own-brand managed pensions on the market.

However, the higher the value of the portfolio, the less competitive it becomes fee-wise.

For portfolios worth £20,000 or less, its fees are the lowest out of the major providers offering similar products, including Aviva, Fidelity and Hargreaves Lansdown, according to analysis by Boring Money factoring in platform and ongoing fund charge fees.

However, based on a portfolio of £50,000, interactive investor’s (ii) managed pension is cheaper on an annual basis.

Based on a portfolio size of £300,000, AJ Bell’s ready-made pension is more expensive than similar products from Monzo and PensionBee.

Source: Boring Money, looking at the most aligned ready-made pension product offered by mainstream providers, factoring in platform fees and ongoing fund charge fees, excluding transaction costs. **no regular savings plan assumed

Beyond fees, AJ Bell’s ready-made personal pension comes with five growth funds to choose from depending on your risk profile.

However, ii has 10 different investment portfolios to choose from depending on what level of risk you’re willing to take.

Should you consolidate your pension pots?

AJ Bell’s ready-made personal pension also comes with a free pension-tracing service included. You can then consolidate these pots into one with AJ Bell.

Consolidating pension pots can make it easier to track investments and see whether they are performing well, as well as reduce what you’re paying in fees.

Shaun Yates, direct to consumer managing director at AJ Bell, said: “Many people have accumulated several pension pots over the course of their career and it can be surprisingly easy to lose track of them.

“Keeping on top of multiple accounts often leaves people unsure whether their savings are working as hard as they could be.”

It’s worth double-checking you won’t lose out on valuable benefits that come with a pension before consolidating it. For example, it’s generally not worth giving up a defined benefit (DB) scheme pension.

Check for any exit fees which may be incurred from ditching a pension pot as well.

Patient investing has driven the number of ISA millionaires – those with £1 million or more held in their ISAs – to a record high of 7,730 in the latest tax year.

The figures, revealed in a Freedom of Information (FOI) request sent to HMRC by savings and investment app Plum, mark an increase of more than 50% in the number of ISA millionaires in the 2023/24 tax year, compared to 5,070 in the tax year prior.

The average ISA millionaire now has a pot worth £1,348,000, virtually the same as the average in the 2022/23 tax year despite over 5,000 more individuals becoming ISA millionaires.

“A jump of more than 50% in a single year is really telling,” said Will Bryant, director of wealth strategy at Plum. “These aren’t people who suddenly saved their way to £1 million. It’s the result of years of patient investing, where the growth on your growth starts doing the heavy lifting. That’s the bit people underestimate.”

The number of ISA multi-millionaires has also increased, with 320 individuals sitting on ISA pots worth between £2 million and £3 million, 40 with pots between £3 million and £4 million, and 60 with accounts worth over £4 million.

Among those 40 with pots worth more than £4 million, the average account value was £7,708,000. This figure balloons to just under £12 million when looking at only the top 25 ISA investors in the UK.

As any money held in an ISA is shielded from capital gains tax and dividend tax, returns from these portfolios will be protected from a hefty tax bill. For example, a portfolio of £1 million which grew by 15% – the average return from the S&P 500 index over the last 10 years – will have brought tax-free returns of £150,000.

Bryant added: “These investors didn’t reach millionaires’ row by selling every time things got scary. They’ve sat through financial crises, Covid, rising interest rates and tariff worries, all of it.

“Staying put is harder than it sounds, but it’s time in the market, not trying to time the market, that works. And this data is proof of that.”

Are there any cash ISA millionaires?

While it is theoretically possible for someone who put their full £20,000 ISA allowance into cash each year since 1999 to have become an ISA millionaire, it is incredibly unlikely.

The vast majority of ISA millionaires joined the club by putting their ISA contributions into the stock market.

A separate FOI request sent to HMRC by Murphy Wealth in 2025 found that in the 2021/22 tax year, not a single ISA millionaire managed to reach the figure through cash ISA holdings alone.

The request found that 94% of the UK’s ISA millionaires got there exclusively through stocks and shares ISAs while the remaining 6% held money in a combination of cash and stocks and shares ISAs.

How can you become an ISA millionaire?

While joining the ISA millionaire’s club may seem a distant dream, diligent and patient investors could get there sooner than you may think.

Data from Plum shows that someone starting from scratch today and putting their full £20,000 ISA allowance into a stocks and shares ISA could reasonably expect to become an ISA millionaire in around 22 years, assuming annualised returns of 7% after fees.

Any investors who want to reach £1 million in their ISA should remember that patience is key.

Charlene Young, head of technical at AJ Bell: “ISA millionaires paint a great picture of what can happen when investors combine time, regular contributions, patience and perhaps a bit of good fortune.”

She said that those who want to build up £1 million in their ISAs will need to adopt a ‘get rich slow’ mindset and start as early as possible.

“There will be younger investors with a high-risk appetite who have achieved huge returns, but ordinary investors are normally best served by a diversified portfolio held for the long term.”

As for what you should invest in, Young says there isn’t a single route to becoming an ISA millionaire.

“Analysis of AJ Bell’s ISA millionaire investors has shown that shares and [investment] trusts are especially popular, but there are plenty using funds too. The important thing is to invest in what you feel comfortable with and understand the level of risk you are taking in return for the potential reward.”

The public have had their say on which four animals will feature on the next series of £5, £10, £20 and £50 banknotes.

Almost 480,000 Brits voted in a consultation launched by the Bank of England in June to decide which fauna will replace historical figures on the notes, and the results are in.

The public has voted for the Atlantic puffin, barn owl, buff-tailed bumblebee and European hedgehog to feature as the central images.

It has not yet been decided which of these animals will feature on each denomination.

Victoria Cleland, chief cashier at the Bank of England, said: “I am delighted that nearly half a million people responded to our wildlife imagery consultation, showing that cash still matters.

“I would like to thank everyone who engaged, including those who I met at our events. With their support, we have chosen four distinct and inspiring animals that not only showcase the great variety of wildlife we have in the UK but will also enhance the security of our banknotes.”

The Bank of England launched an initial consultation in July 2025 asking members of the public to decide which theme they wanted the new notes to follow.

In March 2026, the bank confirmed the theme was animals, with 60% of the 44,000 responses saying it was one of their preferred themes.

The new animal-based notes, which are being launched over the next few years, will come with the latest technology, making them harder to counterfeit.

How did people vote?

In the consultation earlier this summer, the Bank of England released a shortlist of 18 animals to choose from across three categories: Mammals, birds and amphibians, insects and fish.

Here is how many votes each animal received:

Mammals

• European hedgehog (259,665)
• Red fox (244,651)
• Brown hare (130,614)
• Grey seal (92,043)
• Pine marten (82,773)
• Bottlenose dolphin (48,847)

Birds

• Barn owl (270,596)
• Common kingfisher (211,277)
• Atlantic puffin (183,137)
• Great spotted woodpecker (86,839)
• White-tailed eagle (46,109)
• Eurasian curlew (44,521)

Amphibians, insects and fish

• Buff-tailed bumblebee (360,399)
• Emperor dragonfly (143,894)
• Common frog (120,382)
• Marsh fritillary butterfly (108,467)
• Basking shark (69,699)
• Atlantic salmon (45,090)

What other new banknotes have entered circulation in recent years?

A host of new banknotes featuring King Charles III’s face were launched in 2024 following his ascension to the throne in 2022.

The £5, £10, £20 and £50 denominations featured the new monarch on one side and historical figures on the other.

The £5 note was circulated with former prime minister Winston Churchill on the reverse side while the £20 note was printed with the artist J. M. W. Turner on one side.

The £10 note featured early nineteenth century author Jane Austen on the reverse side and the £50 note has mathematician Alan Turing on one side.

Some of these new notes which were the first to enter circulation have sold for thousands of pounds since being printed.

It’s not just new notes which have entered circulation since the King’s ascension to the throne – coins bearing his face started arriving at Post Office branches in late 2022.

High street lender Barclays has become the latest bank to introduce a bumper switching bonus for customers.

Customers could get up to £600 when switching to a Barclays account, making it the highest-paying deal on the market.

However, there are a few hoops to jump through if you want the full £600, and not everyone is eligible for the free cash.

Barclays £600 switching bonus

The £600 offer is only available to those who switch to a Barclays Premier account. It pays customers £350 for switching, plus £150 in monthly rewards. Neither is subject to UK income tax.

However, to be eligible for the account, you need to earn £75,000 a year or have at least £100,000 in eligible savings or investments with Barclays.

To qualify for the initial £450, you must complete the following steps within 30 days of opening your Premier account:

• Complete a full switch using the Current Account Switch Service
• Move at least three direct debits
• Pay in at least £5,000

To receive the additional £150 Monthly Engagement Reward (which is paid as £30 a month for five months), you have to make at least 10 eligible debit card transactions per month. This excludes any pending transactions.

A Barclays Premier account gives you access to several rewards, including:

• Access to a dedicated Wealth Planner and a Wealth Manager, provided you have an investment portfolio of £150,000.
• A free Apple TV subscription, usually worth £9.99 per month

Premier customers also get access to exclusive savings rates and mortgage options, cashback on spending and fee-free spending abroad with a black Premier debit card. The fee-free spend on the card is only valid until 27 September 2027.

Barclays £300 switching bonus

If you’re not eligible for the £600 switching bonus, Barclays is offering another market-leading deal that pays customers up to £300 for switching to a Barclays Bank Account.

It is paying customers £150 in free cash and £150 in Monthly Engagement Rewards. Neither is subject to UK income tax.

To qualify for this bonus, you must complete the following steps within 30 days:

• Open a Barclays Bank Account through the Barclays app.
• Complete a full switch
• Move at least two direct debits
• Deposit a minimum of £2,000

To get the additional £150, paid as £30 a month for five months, you must make at least 10 eligible debit card transactions each month, excluding any pending transactions.

Is Barclays offering the best switching deal on the market?

Currently, Barclays has the highest-paying switching deal on the market, whether you’re a higher earner or want to switch to a standard current account.

Barclays takes the top spot thanks to the £150 in monthly rewards, which brings its £450 Premier bonus to £600, and £150 current account switching bonus to £300.

Here’s how it compares with other deals currently available.

Keep in mind that you can only apply for a Premier account if you meet the relevant income or savings/investment requirements, so check the eligibility criteria before applying.

There are rules around who qualifies as a new customer. For instance, if you bank with HSBC, you cannot take advantage of First Direct’s £175 switching bonus, and vice versa, as First Direct is a division of HSBC. Make sure you check your eligibility before switching.

Should you switch to Barclays?

Jessica Sheldon, MoneyWeek’s deputy digital editor, said: “If you aren’t happy with your bank, it can make sense to take advantage of a current account switching offer. Make sure you’ll meet the requirements and consider if the cash bonus outweighs any benefits your current provider gives you before applying.”

There are many reasons you may want to switch from one banking provider to another. Before doing so, it’s worth considering whether the account you’re moving to suits your needs beyond the headline switching bonus.

If you prefer in-person banking, check whether there is a branch near you. Barclays has closed 1,236 branches since 2015, according to Which?, making it the individual bank to have reduced its network the most in the UK. Barclays has recently announced plans to open three new branches this year.

If you’re after better savings rates, compare what’s available from the provider. Barclays pays customers between 1% and 3.96% for an easy-access account, 1% and 4.55% for an ISA, and up to 4.55% for a fixed bond.

In contrast, the best savings accounts on the market are paying more than 5% on your cash, so your money might be better off in a different account. You don’t have to hold your savings in an account with the same provider as your current account.

While Barclays’ latest switching offer pays the most overall cash bonus, you will only receive the full amount after around six months.

NS&I has hiked rates on eight of its fixed-rate savings accounts for the second time in two months.

The Treasury-backed bank has improved the rate on its one, two, three and five-year fixed rate accounts, with several now paying more than 5%.

It comes as NS&I strives to meet its net financing target of £15 billion for the 2026/27 tax year, up from £13 billion in 2025/26.

Andrew Westhead, retail director at NS&I, said the move to increase interest rates comes in response to changes across the wider savings market.

What NS&I savings accounts have improved interest rates?

NS&I has raised rates on its British Savings Bonds, made up of Guaranteed Growth and Guaranteed Income Bonds, from today (6 October).

NS&I last increased rates on the accounts in August.

All eight of the accounts are fixed-rate, but the Guaranteed Growth Bonds pay out interest annually while the Guaranteed Income Bonds pay interest monthly.

The Guaranteed Growth and Guaranteed Income one-year bond rates have been increased to 4.99% gross/AER and 4.88% gross/4.99% AER, respectively.

The Guaranteed Growth and Guaranteed Income two-year bond rates have been hiked to 5.07% gross/AER and 4.96% gross/5.07% AER, respectively.

Rates on the Guaranteed Growth and Guaranteed Income three-year bonds are now 5.10% gross/AER and 4.99% gross/5.10% AER, respectively.

The Guaranteed Growth and Guaranteed Income five-year bond interest rates have been raised to 5.17% gross/AER and 5.06% gross/5.17% AER, respectively.

Source: NS&I

How do the British Savings Bonds compare to the rest of the market?

All eight of the British Savings Bonds were already competitive before these changes and they’ve now shot up the best buy tables.

The one-year bonds can be beaten only by thisbank’s one-year bond which is paying 5.10% at the time of writing, while the two-year deals are the fourth best on the market in terms of headline interest rate.

Meanwhile NS&I’s three and five-year bonds are among the top three for the highest interest rates for those types of account.

These rankings are based on an initial investment amount of £500 and comparing deals on data firm Moneyfacts’ website.

Rachel Springall, finance expert at data firm Moneyfacts, said NS&I’s latest interest rate rises are “likely to grab the attention of savers looking for a guaranteed return, particularly those who value the reassurance of having their money 100% backed by HM Treasury.”

Springall added: “The rate rises from NS&I reflect the wider uplift in savings rates and expectations surrounding future interest rate decisions.

“Competition in the savings market is good news for consumers, but attractive deals don’t always last for long, particularly if a provider attracts enough deposits and pulls a product from sale.”

Art market watchers are hoping that Claude Monet will fuel a recovery in sales in this year's important autumn auction season. The French painter, best known for his late-19th-century Impressionist works, died 100 years ago this December. To mark the occasion, a number of his paintings are appearing at auction in Paris, the city where Monet was born in 1840.

Fittingly, Sotheby's is focusing on Monet's late career, when the artist was working on a painting called Iris in his famously colourful garden in Giverny, Normandy, just a few months before he died. It is a large painting and one of only a few to reside outside the collection of a museum. That perhaps explains why its existence had only been known thanks to a black-and-white photograph – until now. Iris will lead Sotheby's “Le Temps Retrouvé: The Schlumberger Collection” sale on 22 October, where it will appear alongside several other works assembled by collector Jeanne Schlumberger over four decades from the 1950s.

Monet's Iris could fetch €30 million

Yet, it is not even its first public viewing that makes Iris so special. It's what it tells us about the development of Monet as a painter. It doesn't so much represent the “final chapters of Impressionism,” says Sotheby's, as it does “the opening pages of Modernism and Abstraction” – artistic styles that Monet had begun to explore in the mid-1920s. It's little wonder, then, that Iris has been given an upper pre-sale estimate of €30 million – the highest ever bestowed on a painting at auction in France. A second late-career Monet is also appearing in the sale – Saule pleureur (Weeping willow), painted in 1918-1919 and valued at up to €12 million.

Beyond the Monets at Sotheby's, highlights of the sale include La Ferme, Arbres au Bord de la Rivière and Ciel Entre les Arbres, all painted by a young Paul Cézanne in 1862-1864 as a single large mural at his home in Provence. The mural was later detached from the wall and transferred to canvases, including these three with upper estimates ranging from €600,000 to €800,000. As rare, early examples of Cézanne's work, they have been designated Trésors nationaux – important works of major value to France's cultural heritage.

Paris, however, is not quite done with Monet. Over at rival auction house Christie's, also on 22 October, Monet's Impressionist work Bord des falaises à Pourville (Edge of the Cliffs at Pourville) is leading the marquee sale of paintings from the collection of the revered 19th-century collector Paul Durand-Ruel, who was also Monet's art dealer.

Painted during Monet's stay in Pourville-sur-Mer in 1882, it “ranks among the artist's most remarkable depictions of the Norman coast,” says Christie's. It is expected to fetch in the region of €11 million to €15 million.

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The Principality of Liechtenstein is currently mired in a dispute that is “consuming Europe’s wealthiest monarchy” – with rebel royals threatening to sue the prince regent, Prince Alois, says the Financial Times. At issue are his progressive plans to reform their “dynastic status – and the allowances that come with it”.

Extended family members claim the 58-year-old prince has used long overdue reforms – including opening up the succession to women and giving them voting rights in family affairs – as cover for a series of less attractive measures that will “tighten his grip” over their own lives and weaken their power.

The mooted changes (reportedly opposed by a third of the 50 princes eligible to vote) give Alois more authority over “their titles, coats of arms and dynastic membership” of the “princely house”. Also at stake is the multi-billion dollar family fortune, much of it centred on LGT – the private bank owned by the princely house and overseen by Alois’s brother, Prince Max. In 2025 the bank, worth more than $400 billion, paid out a dividend of about $878 million. No one wants to be cut out of their share.

The situation is complicated by Liechtenstein’s governance structure. The “house law” governing the ruling family – which dates from 1136 – sits outside the microstate’s constitution. Yet the ruler has “power to veto laws, dismiss governments and dissolve parliament”. Two decades ago, the Council of Europe’s body of legal experts called this arrangement “astonishing”. It is currently still in force.

Who are the House of Liechtenstein?

The combination of “royal status and business savvy” has long set the House of Liechtenstein apart from every other monarchy in Europe, says Salon Privé. The dynasty has bred a long line of bankers, not least Prince Max, 57 – the second son of the official reigning monarch Hans-Adam II and a former alumnus of JPMorgan Chase – who has been running LGT since 2006. Under his watch, it has expanded “from a regional European bank to a global operation” with 6,000 employees across 30 countries and now seems well positioned “for another century of success”.

More recently, a younger family member, Gisela Bergmann, 36, has been making waves, says The Times. In August, the Pope appointed the princess – who previously ran the family’s wealth management business – to manage the Vatican’s finances. She has the perfect credentials to run a wealthy microstate, once observing: “We look at wealth and family from a holistic perspective, always thinking in terms of generations” – a message likely to go down well at the Vatican.

Still, the most significant, and increasingly controversial, member of the tribe is Prince Alois, who has been acting as regent to his father since 2004. Born in 1968, he attended Sandhurst, becoming a second lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards, before studying law at the University of Salzburg. Alois worked at a firm of London chartered accountants before returning to the family ancestral home, Valduz, in 1996.

For years, the prince had the perfect public profile. As the Australian Women’s Weekly approvingly noted, he was known “for his more contemporary outlook, balancing tradition with global diplomacy”. But recent opposition stretches beyond his family, says the Swiss news site Blue News. “Liechtenstein is in an uproar” over everything from the prince’s stance over abortion to his far-reaching constitutional powers. A recent hacker attack – which has “shaken confidence” in Liechtenstein’s financial centre – hasn’t helped.

For decades Liechtenstein was regarded as “the epitome of stability” and “synonymous with prosperity”. It’s going through an unusually turbulent period.

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Retirees withdrew over £22 billion from their pensions in tax-free lump sums in the 2025/26 tax year, up more than 20% compared to the previous tax year.

Pensioners took over £40 billion in tax-free lump sums in the last two tax years alone, Financial Conduct Authority data shows.

Under pension tax-free cash rules, you can normally withdraw up to 25% of your pension pots free from tax.

Experts at AJ Bell say the boom in withdrawals may have been driven by fears of increased taxation at Labour’s first two Budgets when rumours circulated that then-chancellor Rachel Reeves would increase taxation on pensions.

Between 2018/19 to 2022/23, FCA data shows the total taken in tax-free pension lump sums never exceeded £8.7 billion, but rose to just over £10 billion in the 2023/24 tax year, and then soared to £18.3 billion in 2024/25.

Despite speculation of a tax raid, Reeves left pension tax-free cash untouched in the 2025 Autumn Budget.

Michael Summersgill, chief executive of AJ Bell, said: “These figures should end any doubt about the real-world consequences of allowing pension tax speculation to run unchecked. The rush to take tax-free cash began in 2024 and the latest FCA data confirms another repeat around the 2025 Budget, just as pension providers warned.

“This trend is bad for households and bad for the economy – pulling billions of pounds out of pensions prematurely reduces the capital available for long-term investment.”

AJ Bell has urged the new chancellor John Healey to publicly commit to not making any major changes to pension tax-free cash and tax relief to avoid a similar rush before this year’s Budget.

“A chancellor focused on putting households on sound financial footing and boosting growth should see this as an open goal. Confirming pension tax stability would solve the problem overnight without a penny of new Treasury spending, while clearly signalling the government stands behind its promises to savers,” added Summersgill.

How tax-free pension lump sums work

You can usually take up to 25% of your pension pot out without having to pay any tax on the money, up to a maximum of £268,275. The minimum age you will be given this option is 55, although this is set to rise from April 2028, and you are able to withdraw your tax-free lump sum in one large payment or multiple smaller ones.

The 25% maximum is calculated from the total money you have in any of your pensions, not just one. For example, if you had £50,000 in one pension and £50,000 in another, the maximum lump sum you could take from either would be £25,000.

Income from the lump sum is not included in your tax-free personal allowance. Any money withdrawn from your pension over the 25% tax-free portion or £268,275 maximum will be taxed according to the tax band you are in.

The risks of withdrawing your pension lump sum

Having the option to take up to 25% of your pension pot as a lump sum can give you more freedom in retirement. But while the option being available can be useful, you should know the risks of taking money out of your pension too early.

Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at AJ Bell, said: “The vast majority of people take some tax-free cash from their pension, and millions do so before they reach retirement age.

“There will be some people who have drawn up their plans carefully, for whom this makes perfect financial sense. However, there are others taking it purely because of worries about what might lie in the Budget – particularly in the past two years – who could be doing immeasurable damage to their retirement income.”

For example, having a large pension pot means the effects of compound interest are stronger, and if you take money out of the pot, the returns you get from compound interest are lower, meaning your pension pot will grow slower.

Coles said: “If, for example, you had a pot of £400,000 at the age of 55, which grew untouched at 6% for 10 years, the pot could grow to £716,339. If you took the £100,000 and spent it, your £300,000 could grow to just £537,254 over a decade.”

She said other risks included taking a lump-sum too early because people “don’t trust the government not to mess with tax-free cash in the Budget”, and spending it before thinking about whether you would like an annuity instead.

Withdrawing and spending a quarter of your pension pot also means you will have less money to use later on in your retirement which increases the risk of outliving your retirement savings.

Meanwhile, Helen Morrissey, head of retirement analysis at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “The FCA’s data shows the enormous impact Budget speculation can have on people’s behaviour. Many people took money they didn’t need and when the anticipated announcement failed to materialise, they were left with few options.”

She warned that once you take the tax-free lump sum, you will not be able to put the money back into your pension without incurring extra tax if you have second thoughts.

That means if you have already used up your other tax-free allowances like your annual ISA allowance then the money you have taken out may be subject to capital gains and dividend tax. Meanwhile, leaving the money in cash means it will slowly be eroded away by inflation.

Morrissey said: “Building a pension takes years of disciplined investing and planning and this should not be put at risk by short term speculation. Pensions are the ultimate long-term investment, and people need a stable tax framework that allows them to make informed decisions and build their retirement pot with confidence.”

US stocks continue to climb despite rising interest rates and squealing bond yields. The S&P 500 index has risen another 12% so far this year, with the technology-focused Nasdaq 100 up a fifth. Thank “a golden period” for company profits, says Iain Snedden of Aegon Asset Management. S&P 500 earnings rose 50% year on year in the second quarter, an “incredible number” that you usually only see during a recovery after a recession.

While mega-cap tech stocks remain in the vanguard, the boom is broad-based. Energy firms are raking in money from rising fuel prices, while banks are throwing off cash because of higher interest rates. The AI boom is also supporting strong performance at industrials, whose expertise in power management and construction is essential for the data centre build-out. Earnings growth has been so explosive that valuations have actually fallen. The S&P 500 trades on a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 19, down from 23 a year ago.

You don’t usually see valuations falling in a bull market, says Ben Carlson on his blog, A Wealth of Common Sense. Why are investors marking down companies even as they deliver superb growth? It is probably a mixture of three things.

Firstly, it prices in an assumption that the current AI splurge – and the associated profits – won’t last forever. Secondly, it reflects concerns that higher inflation may ruin the party. And thirdly, with bond yields rising, equities face stronger competition from fixed-income securities.

Donald Trump’s claim that America is the “hottest economy in the world” isn’t far wrong. The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow tracker estimates that GDP grew at an annualised pace of 5% in the just completed third quarter. The latest PMI business survey shows activity running at the highest level in more than five years. Fuelled by “fiscal largesse”, “booming business investment” and “near-zero interest rates” after you adjust for inflation, the world’s largest economy “is building a powerful head of steam – and risks overheating”, says Mike Dolan for Reuters. That could require interest rates to climb much higher, but it is far from clear whether that would kill the bull market in US stocks.

For all the talk of government debt, households and businesses are not very leveraged, says Max Kettner in the Financial Times. Net interest payments at US companies have fallen to a “more than 20-year low”. That reduces private-sector sensitivity to interest-rate increases.

US stocks are partying like it’s 1999

There is precedent for US stocks to rally despite rising bond yields, says Sam Goldfarb in The Wall Street Journal. The 1994 yield surge, which was caused by Alan Greenspan raising rates, initially sent the S&P 500 down 8%. But it then recovered because a strong economy continued to support corporate earnings. AI-fuelled spending and hopes for a deal with Iran has many US investors feeling similarly optimistic today. That said, this could also be like 1999. Back then, rising yields initially left markets “choppy”. Shares then rallied, reaching a dotcom peak in March 2000, only to subsequently fall 49% by late 2002.

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The gap between earnings and house prices has fallen to an 11-year low, but higher mortgage costs continue to squeeze buyers.

The average UK home now costs 7.3 times median earnings, down from 7.6 in 2025 and is at its lowest point since 2015, according to new research by Lloyds Bank.

Lloyds data showed the average UK house price rose by 0.5% to £299,131 between the second quarter (Q2) of 2025 and Q2 2026, while median earnings went up by 4.5% to £40,790 over the same period.

But higher mortgage rates resulting, in part, from the conflict in the Middle East are counteracting this trend, meaning owning a home is still a challenge for many.

According to data firm Moneyfacts, the average two-year fixed-rate deal is 5.93% as of 1 October, up from 4.83% on 27 February, the day before the US and Israel began strikes on Iran, which led to global oil prices surging.

Lloyds suggested the average monthly mortgage payment rose from £1,100 to £1,157 between Q2 2025 and Q2 2026.

Andrew Assam, mortgages director at Lloyds, said: “There are some encouraging signs for people looking to buy a home. Wages have continued to rise while house prices have remained relatively stable, helping to narrow the gap between earnings and house prices.

"However, affordability remains stretched for many households.”

Affordability improves for first-time buyers

Incomes relative to house prices have improved for first-time buyers, according to Lloyds.

The bank said the average property price for first-time buyers rose by 0.3% to £239,681 between Q2 2025 and Q2 2026.

The average UK first home now costs 5.9 times median earnings, down from 6.1 in 2025. This is the lowest the figure has been since 2015.

Lloyds acknowledged, though, that saving for a deposit still remains a significant challenge for first-time buyers, who typically need to save around £24,000 to get on the ladder with a 10% deposit.

Higher borrowing costs are also an issue, with the average monthly repayment rising from £1,100 to £1,150 between 2025 and 2026.

According to Lloyds’s figures, the average first-time buyer mortgage payment now accounts for around 34% of income compared with 41% for those renting.

Prime minister Andy Burnham has made getting people on the property ladder for the first time a key priority, recently announcing the Your First Home scheme.

The equity loan scheme means first-time buyers will be able to get a home with a 2.5% deposit, backed up with a 20% loan from the government.

Affordability pressures persist in London and the South East

London and the South East remain the least affordable places to buy a home based on local house prices relative to median incomes, Lloyds’s research found.

The house price to income ratio fell from 10.9 to 10.3 in Greater London and from 9.7 to 9.1 in the South East between 2025 and 2026 – meaning both areas became more affordable.

Areas where house prices tend to be lower generally saw less dramatic improvements in affordability.

The house price to income ratio in the North East, for example, dropped from 5.1 to 5.0, while in the North West it fell from 6.5 to 6.3 and 6.0 to 5.8 in Yorkshire and the Humber.

Northern Ireland was the only UK region where homes became less affordable between 2025 and 2026.

House prices rose by 7.4% in the region compared to a 3.7% rise in median earnings, meaning the average house now costs 6.0 times median earnings versus 5.8 times last year.

Tom Bill, head of UK residential research at estate agent Knight Frank, said: “The house price gap between London and the rest of the country continues to narrow as more affordable parts of the country see stronger growth.”

Bill believes that this dynamic will eventually see demand gravitate back towards London and South East England, re-starting the housing cycle again.

“The recent mortgage rate spike has only just begun to hit, which will keep a lid on activity and prices for the rest of this year, something that will affect highly-leveraged borrowers, like first-time buyers, hardest,” he added.

The cheapest areas to buy a home relative to earnings are in Scotland, according to Lloyds’s research. In Inverclyde and Aberdeen, the average home costs 3.5 times earnings in both areas as of Q2 2026.

The most expensive areas to buy a home relative to earnings are in Elmbridge in Surrey and Kensington and Chelsea, London. Buyers in these areas need to earn 17.4 and 17.3 times the median UK salary respectively to buy the typical home there.

Source: Lloyds Banking Group/Office for National Statistics (ONS)

Starling Bank has launched a market-leading easy-access savings account which pays an interest rate of 5%.

The account is available for new customers, and you can make unlimited withdrawals without incurring a penalty.

What does Starling’s easy-access saver offer?

Starling’s Easy Saver is paying new customers 5% on balances of up to £25,000.

The account has a fixed bonus of 2.5% for six months, on top of an underlying standard variable rate of 2.5%.

While you can save up to £1 million in this account, the top rate is only payable on balances of up to £25,000. The rate will drop to 2.5% on any balances above this threshold.

Customers will need to open a Starling current account to apply for the easy-access saver. You can make unlimited penalty-free withdrawals with this account, and interest is accrued daily and paid monthly.

Starling is a digital bank, which means the account may not be right for you if you prefer to do your banking at a branch.

This 5% offer is only for new customers – loyal customers are offered a lower 4% rate, including a 1.5% fixed rate bonus for six months.

Is Starling’s easy-access saver a best-buy?

Starling’s 5% saver pays the most on the market as of 1 October, making it the top easy-access savings account in terms of interest rate. Starling has also been voted one of the UK’s best banks.

However, there are a few caveats to keep in mind when considering the savings account.

Jessica Sheldon, MoneyWeek's deputy digital editor, said: “Starling's 5% easy access savings account looks attractive but it includes a 2.5% bonus rate for six months, so you might want to check if you can get a more competitive rate elsewhere in half a year's time. Plus, the underlying rate is variable, meaning it could change at any time.”

Customers can close their Starling Easy Saver without incurring a penalty, so once the bonus period comes to an end, you might want to review your options to find a better savings account.

The next best account is Zopa’s Limited Access pot, which pays 4.56% and has a fixed rate of 1.05% for 12 months, followed by Cynergy Bank’s 4.55% saver, which includes a 2% fixed bonus for 12 months.

Alternatively, if you wish to fix your savings, you could earn up to 5.12% with AlRayan Bank if you lock away your cash for a year.

Fund flows from UK retail investors were positive during August for the tenth consecutive month, but some sectors have seen outflows.

Latest data from the Investment Association (IA), an industry body representing the UK’s fund managers, shows UK-based investment funds registered £894 million in net sales to retail investors during August, in marked contrast from the £1.8 billion in outflows registered in the same month last year.

“Despite the summer break typically slowing flows and a worsening outlook for price inflation… investors kept their cool and carried on investing through the warmer weather,” said Miranda Seath, director, market insight & fund sectors at the IA.

^{Source: The Investment Association}

August’s positive figure brings the total net retail fund flows in the first eight months of 2026 to £13.8 billion.

Monthly net retail fund flows have been positive ever since October 2025, which saw £4.6 billion in outflows.

Which asset classes were the most popular in August?

While investors were net buyers of funds in general during August, though, there were significant differences between funds targeting different asset classes.

Fixed income and mixed asset funds were the most sought-after, registering inflows of £656 million and £749 million respectively.

Equity funds, though, saw £478 million in outflows during the month. While that sounds like bad news for the stock market, it actually represents a substantial slowing of outflows compared to July, when nearly £2 billion of capital flowed out of equity funds.

^{Source: The Investment Association}

Money market funds saw net outflows of £728 million in August following three consecutive months of positive flows.

Which equity fund sectors saw the biggest outflows during August?

Equity funds across the board showed net outflows during August, and besides global funds – which registered net inflows of £568 million – no individual sector saw significant positive flows during the month.

However, the £459 million that left equity funds in August was an improvement following three consecutive months of £1.4 billion+ outflows (peaking at £1.86 billion outflows in June).

Funds investing in UK stocks saw the biggest outflows during August, with £615 million leaving this sector. Again, though, this was an improvement compared to July, when £1.65 billion left the sector.

Flows into North American funds turned negative, from £201 million inflows in July to £363 million outflows during August, while outflows from Asian funds accelerated from £49 million in July to £114 million in August.

There were modest positive inflows for funds targeting European and Japanese stocks, with these sectors netting inflows of £40 million and £25 million respectively.

Should you invest in funds?

Funds offer a versatile approach to investing across almost any type of asset class. They can work in a wide variety of market environments, as evidenced by the inflows and outflows across different sectors the August data reveals.

The IA noted that it is natural for uncertainty to creep into decisionmaking when it comes to buying funds.

“Market conditions alone do not determine investor behaviour,” said the IA’s Seath. “The domestic policy environment plays an equally critical role. With the Autumn Budget fast-approaching, it is worth remembering that policy stability is a fundamental pillar of investor confidence.

“In October 2025, the last full month before the previous Budget, UK retail investors withdrew £4.5 billion from investments, including £1.4 billion from UK equities, amid concerns about reported tax changes,” she added.

If you are new to investing in funds, it is worth considering that some funds are better for beginners than others. You should do your research thoroughly and consider where any given fund fits with your overall goals and risk tolerance before diving in.

Two Premium Bonds holders have woken up millionaires thanks to NS&I’s October prize draw.

The first £1 million jackpot winner is from East Sussex. They bought their winning bond for £5,900 in May 2018.

Their winning bond number is 331QY484133 and they have the maximum holding of £50,000.

The second is from Somerset, bought the winning bond only months ago, in July 2026, and holds £16,000 in total in Premium Bonds. Their winning bond number is 681KK770541.

Meanwhile, 96 people have won £100,000 in the October prize draw. A further 191 people got a £50,000 payout and 382 won £25,000 each.

How many prizes will be issued in October’s Premium Bonds draw?

Millions more smaller prizes will also be shared out by NS&I this month, including 957 £10,000 prizes.

Over 1.7 million £25 prizes and 2.3 million £100 prizes will also be making their way to winners.

In total, more than 6.5 million prizes worth £498 million will be distributed in the October draw.

Here is the breakdown of all the prizes that will be shared out this month:

Source: NS&I

How to check if you've won in October’s prize draw

The two £1 million winners are notified in person by NS&I’s Agent Million each month.

Winners of the £100,000 and lower Premium Bonds prizes can check if they have won the day after the first working day of each month. For October 2026, that date is 2 October.

You can do this by using the Premium Bonds prize checker app, visiting the NS&I website or via Amazon Alexa.

The prize checker app and website will show you prizes you’ve won that month, anything you’ve won in the previous six draws and any older prizes you haven’t claimed yet.

Make sure you have your bond number or NS&I number so you can access your account.

There is no time limit to claim a Premium Bonds prize so you should check if you’ve won anything before and didn’t realise, even if you bought the Premium Bonds years ago.

More than half of UK savers do not expect to have enough to retire on, meaning more people could be forced to use their property wealth for an income boost.

This typically involves equity release plans, which enable homeowners to exchange some of the home equity for tax-free cash payments.

Insurance firm LV= found that almost six in 10 (58%) non-retired UK adults aren’t confident they will have saved enough for a comfortable retirement, and that 39% would consider using property wealth as a source of retirement income.

While equity release may feel attractive, and can allow you to stay in your home and provide a cash boost in retirement, there are major drawbacks to consider.

Lucie Spencer, partner at wealth manager and financial planning firm Evelyn Partners, said: “Equity release may not be the right approach for everyone, and it could be that it is more costly than drawing down other assets, so should be considered alongside other options.”

What is equity release?

Equity release is a way of freeing up the equity you’ve built up in a home in exchange for tax-free cash.

Equity is the part of a property you own. If you have a mortgage, the equity is the difference between your home’s current market value and what’s left to pay on the mortgage.

For example, if your home is worth £300,000 and you have £50,000 left to pay on your mortgage, your equity is £250,000.

Equity released from a property can be taken as a lump sum, smaller withdrawals over time or a mixture of both.

Typically, equity release products are only available to those aged 55 and over.

By releasing equity from your home, you’re taking out a loan which has to be paid back with interest added on top, either when you die or when you move into a care home and your property is sold.

There are two different types of equity release: a lifetime mortgage and a Home Reversion Plan.

Lifetime mortgages are more common and usually have a fixed rate of interest applied for the life of the loan. When you die or move into care, the home is sold to repay the loan and any leftover money goes to your beneficiaries.

Through a Home Reversion Plan, you sell a percentage of your home in return for a lump sum. When your property is sold, the equity release company receives their percentage and the remaining balance is paid to the estate.

Should you use your property for retirement income?

You may want to use equity from your property to fund retirement. Or maybe you want to gift money to a loved one.

But, there are pros and cons to consider.

Pros

Most lifetime mortgages don’t require monthly repayments, which means the loan and any additional interest don’t have to be repaid until you die or move into a care home.

Some lifetime mortgages let you make monthly repayments if you want to keep the overall balance of the loan and interest down and lower the eventual bill.

Equity release can also lower the inheritance tax (IHT) bill for your beneficiaries as you are reducing the size of your estate.

One major advantage to equity release is that you get to stay in your home.

Spencer, from Evelyn Partners, said: “You can stay in your family house for longer and use the funds to spend as you wish to, for example improving your lifestyle.

“You don’t need to release everything in one go and can opt to take smaller sums.”

Cons

Borrowing against your property can see interest build up significantly over time, especially if you take out a loan earlier in your retirement, meaning your beneficiaries are left with less or you don’t have enough to pay for care.

Spencer said: “The whole property could end up being owed [to the equity release company] once interest has been rolled up and the debt can increase substantially due to compounding [interest] which could significantly impact the amount of assets you leave behind to children or other family members.”

Some equity release products come with a ‘no negative equity guarantee’ – which means your estate will never owe more than the property is worth when sold. It’s worth finding out if a product you’re looking at has one of these.

Another drawback to equity release products is that some come with early repayment charges, so if you want to pay off a bit of the loan early, you’ll have to pay a fee.

Taking out equity release can also impact your eligibility for means-tested benefits which are based on your income, such as Pension Credit.

Having to pay for equity release could be a shock to beneficiaries upon your death as well.

Spencer said: “I would really stress that [you should] involve the family members that are going to be dealing with your estate or benefitting from your estate when you pass away.

“Most of the complaints [we notice around] equity release are when the kids don’t know [it’s been taken out].”

Meanwhile, some equity release companies will attach certain conditions or rules to letting you take out equity on your home such as not smoking in the property or repainting the home.

Spencer said: “Because, effectively, you’ve signed over a chunk of your house to them, and even though it’s still your house, they can put provisos on it to keep it up to a [certain] standard to make sure they get their money back.”

Spencer advised those considering equity release to take professional advice from a Financial Conduct Authority-authorised financial advisor.

She added: “I’d strongly recommend doing so with an adviser who is a member of the Society of Later Life Advisers, who has specialist expertise in this area.”

What are the alternatives?

Downsizing

Downsizing from a more expensive house to a cheaper one can free up equity and could also lead to lower council tax, energy, or other household bills.

You will have to factor in the cost of moving home though, including conveyancing and survey costs, as well as removal company and estate agent fees.

Spencer said: “A lot of clients prefer it [downsizing] because they’re not running the risk of high interest charges clocking up.

“They know their family is still going to inherit the estate and all of the money is still within the estate.”

Retirement interest-only (RIO) mortgages

These types of mortgages are generally designed for those aged 50 and over, and work like other interest-only mortgages where you pay off the interest each month and then pay off the principal loan when you sell your home.

They can be a cheaper alternative to lifetime mortgages because interest isn’t allowed to grow each month, leaving you with a bigger balance when the home is sold.

“It’s not like where the interest rolls up and you can lose the entire value of your house,” said Spencer.

You can also use the money gained from the loan as a gift to a loved one and if you die more than seven years after making it, it will fall outside your estate for IHT purposes, Spencer explained.

Investors appear to have piled into both crypto and gold in the later part of this summer.

Gold was a standout asset during 2025 with gains of 64% during the year, though the price of gold has fallen off in 2026 after hitting an all-time high of $5,595 on 29 January.

Similarly, cryptocurrencies (crypto) endured a challenging start to the year. The price of Bitcoin, the largest and most influential cryptocurrency, fell 28% between the start of the year and 31 July, while Ethereum, the second largest, fell 37% over the same period

However, there has been a partial recovery in August and September, particularly in crypto markets; across these two months, gold gained 2% and Bitcoin gained 33% (as of market close on 28 September).

“Record inflows into Bitcoin and gold exchange-traded products (ETPs) have fuelled the rally in both assets recently,” said Francesco Paganelli, principal, manager research at Morningstar.

Paganelli added that August saw the strongest inflows into gold ETPs in five years, while the recent spate of buying marked “a sharp turnaround for global Bitcoin products”.

What are the similarities between gold and crypto?

It makes sense that gold and crypto markets sometimes move in tandem since there is some overlap in the investment case for both asset types.

In theory, both function as stores of value or a means of exchange that, unlike fiat currencies, have a finite supply. Only so much gold has been and ever will be mined, while most cryptocurrencies have scarcity built into their design. There will, for example, only ever be 21 million Bitcoin produced (the process by which they enter circulation is known as ‘mining’).

That means both asset classes can be viewed as a hedge against inflation; if the value of a currency (particularly the US dollar) shrinks, it takes more of that currency to buy a given amount of gold or crypto.

By extension, both are sensitive to changes in interest rates (again, particularly in the US as both asset classes are usually priced in dollars). If expectations for higher US interest rates increase, it is reasonable for gold and crypto prices to fall, because there is a higher likelihood that US inflation will be lower – and vice versa.

“A common driver appears to be the de-dollarisation trade, whereby investors seek to reduce their reliance on US dollar-denominated assets,” said Morningstar’s Paganelli. “After years of exceptional US equity market performance, many portfolios have become increasingly concentrated in dollar-linked exposures.

“At the same time, rising government bond yields are making bonds less effective as a safe haven, prompting some investors to look elsewhere for assets they perceive as alternative stores of value.”

However, the two are not perfectly correlated. Historically, Bitcoin has tended to perform in risk-on market conditions, while gold has done better in risk-off environments. 2026 has been an exception to that rule – the gains that gold made last year and the outsized impact that interest rate expectations have had on price movements this year have made it behave more like a risk-on asset.

How to invest in gold and crypto

You can buy a wide range of funds or ETPs that give exposure to gold and crypto prices individually. The rules for crypto ETPs are evolving; as of April 2026, crypto ETPs can only be held in an Innovative Finance ISA (IFISA), not a stocks and shares ISA – though as of October 2025 they are eligible to be held in a self-invested personal pension (SIPP).

One product that offers exposure to both assets in one is the 21Shares Bitcoin Gold ETP (LON:BOLD). The ETP invests in both gold and Bitcoin, and adjusts the balance between each asset based on their inverse volatility, meaning the amount of risk you are exposed to from each is equal. As with other crypto ETPs, BOLD can only be held in a SIPP or an IFISA.

As of 28 September, BOLD’s underlying assets were allocated 53.1% to gold and 46.9% to Bitcoin.

Before buying either gold or crypto, though, you should consider where each fits into your portfolio and your risk appetite.

“History shows that crypto's sharp rallies can be followed by equally sharp reversals,” said Paganelli. “With both gold and bitcoin experiencing elevated volatility in recent months, investors should be particularly disciplined about the size and timing of any allocation to either asset class.”

Prime minister Andy Burnham has delivered a welcome lift to beleaguered UK housebuilding stocks ahead of the first Autumn Budget of his tenure with the announcement of a new scheme, which some analysts say could boost housebuilder profits by as much as 70% over coming years.

Hopes that UK housebuilders could benefit from a Burnham boost were vindicated when markets opened on 28 September, following the announcement of the Your First Home scheme aimed at helping first-time buyers get onto the property ladder. The equity loans scheme means you only need a 2.5% deposit, and can get a support of 20% from the government. But, to be eligible, you must purchase a new build from a housebuilder that is part of the scheme.

Shares in Persimmon (LON:PSN) and Barratt Redrow (LON:BTRW) rose around 16% and 13% respectively amid the news.

“The UK government's new equity loan scheme could be the catalyst the UK homebuilding sector has been waiting for,” said Jack Fletcher-Price, equity analyst at investment research company Morningstar. “While the finer details will matter, anything that lowers the deposit barrier for first-time buyers should translate into stronger demand, higher reservation rates and a healthier market for new-build homes.”

The FTSE 350 Household Goods & Home Construction Total Return Index gained around 11% on 28 September, following the announcement of the new scheme. In the 12 months prior to its announcement, the index had fallen 13%.

What is the Your First Home scheme?

The Your First Home scheme aims to enable more people to buy their first home. It is similar to the Help To Buy scheme the Conservative government introduced in 2013 and which ran until 2023, with a second iteration introduced in 2021.

The new scheme will enable first-time-buyers to purchase a new-build home with a deposit of just 2.5% of its value, and to borrow up to 20% in a government-backed equity loan.

As well as being limited to first-time buyers, regional price caps will also limit the value of properties that can be bought using the scheme.

“The previous Help to Buy scheme supported more than 387,000 new-build purchases, with the vast majority of those by first-time buyers,” said Aarin Chiekrie, equity analyst at wealth manager Hargreaves Lansdown, “so a well-designed replacement could meaningfully lift demand and give builders confidence to start more sites.”

Chiekrie cautioned, though, that exact details of the scheme will be unveiled at the Autumn Budget on 28 October and that, until then, some buyers may choose to hold off, “so sales are likely to remain subdued in the meantime”.

What does Your First Home mean for UK housebuilder stocks?

While it is still a month until the full details of the scheme are announced, markets have been quick to assume that UK housebuilders will benefit from higher demand for new-build homes.

At its peak, the previous Help To Buy scheme supported around 40% of new-build transactions according to a research note from investment bank Peel Hunt. The analysis forecasts a 10% uplift in sales volumes by 2028 alongside a 200 basis point increase in gross margins. That could lead to an increase in earnings per share (EPS) of around 70% for the sector.

“We expect the biggest impact to be on sales volumes rather than house prices,” said Morningstar’s Fletcher-Price, “with Persimmon particularly well placed given its high exposure to first-time buyers.”

He added that Barratt Redrow “trades at an excessive discount to the peer group” and could therefore be an appealing option for value-focused investors.

Analysts at Peel Hunt, meanwhile, believe that Persimmon could see the smallest EPS increases among the sector and that Crest Nicholson (LON:CRST) and Gleeson (LON:GLE) could see the largest rises.

There will also be benefits along the housebuilder supply chain. Brick manufacturers Ibstock (LON:IBST) and Forterra (LON:FORT) derive around 60% of revenue from new builds, according to Peel Hunt, and as such could be key beneficiaries.

The state pension triple lock is set to be replaced with a double lock system in April 2030 to help fund a new free social care service, prime minister Andy Burnham has announced.

Burnham affirmed that he will stick to the 2024 Labour manifesto commitment to keep the triple lock in place for the rest of this parliament, but said he will “adjust” the promise if Labour win a second term in power.

“I won't pretend some of this won't be difficult. I accept I may pay a political price, but someone has to go through the pain barrier and rip the plaster off,” he said during his speech at the Labour Party conference.

Under the current triple lock system, the state pension increases every year by whatever is highest out of inflation, average earnings, or a flat 2.5%.

From April 2030, the first tax year after the next general election, Burnham said the state pension “will continue to rise every year, at least by prices, or 2.5%”.

Assuming Labour won the election so they could change the policy, this would effectively turn the triple lock into a ‘double lock’, protecting the state pension against inflation but ending the direct relationship between the state pension and annual average earnings.

Burnham said the state pension will also “hold its value relative to earnings over time, so that pensioners will always share in the rising prosperity of the nation”.

Kate Smith, head of pensions at Aegon, speculated that this link to earnings over time “could possibly involve an element of smoothing of earnings increases over a few years relative to the increases in prices and the 2.5% increase,” but said that it is currently unclear how this will work in practice.

Smith welcomed the change to the triple lock, saying that it is time for the country to have “serious conversation about how the state pension can remain affordable, sustainable, and fair across generations.”

She added: “It is important to remember that nothing changes for pensioners now. The government has reiterated that the triple lock remains in place until 2029. For millions of people, the state pension is the bedrock of retirement income and will continue to be so.”

Helen Morrissey, head of retirement analysis at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “Now that the move from the triple lock to the double lock has been announced, the government must also provide savers with a stable tax environment and publish a five-year tax roadmap that sets out its plans on the important issues that influence how people plan for retirement such as tax-free cash and pensions tax relief."

Savings from triple lock removal will fund new social care system

Burnham said that scrapping the triple lock in its current form would “generate significant savings” that will be used to create a new ‘national care service’ if voters grant Labour a second term in office.

The proposed service would provide social care for the elderly and operate under NHS principles of being universal and free at the point of use, and would be at the heart of Labour’s next general election manifesto.

Burnham called the plan “a landmark policy as significant as the creation of the NHS itself, and utterly essential to securing its future. We will start laying the ground now for the National Care Service and introduce it in the next Parliament.”

He added: “So this is the deal: a state pension that rises every year, no care charges, and a high-quality national care service to give peace of mind in later life. Conference, I am going to go out and argue for a good deal for our pensioners and for older people in the 21st century.”

Residential adult social care costs an average of £54,000 a year

Implementing a free and universal social care system could save families hundreds of thousands of pounds on average on residential care.

Residential adult social care costs more than £54,000 a year on average in England, while nursing care costs over £71,000, according to a report by Laing Buisson in 2025.

Meanwhile, new data from investment platform AJ Bell suggests caring for a loved one yourself over 20 years can cost £1 million in lost salary and pension wealth.

Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at AJ Bell, said: “When we think about the cost of care, we tend to consider the expense of formal care, which is eye-watering. However, in 2023/24, an estimated 5.4 million people were informal carers, and for them, there’s every chance their responsibilities are costing them dear too.”

Last November, Brazilian federal agents pulled banker Daniel Vorcaro off the tarmac at São Paulo's Guarulhos airport as he prepared to board a private flight out of the country. He was subsequently charged with multiple counts of bank fraud, corruption and money laundering, and is currently awaiting judgement, says The Conversation. Daniel Vorcaro, 42, presided over Brazil's biggest banking failure in a generation – his defunct Banco Master left a $10 billion black hole and many thousands of victims.

He is hardly “the first Brazilian scammer in a banker's suit”. But, aside from scale, what singles this case out is Vorcaro's network of influence, which extends right to the top of the Brazilian establishment. As the country approaches crucial elections, the Banco Master crisis “threatens to shake the country's democracy to its core”. It's hard to find a prominent Brazilian politician – including president Lula – who hasn't been dragged into Vorcaro's net. Portraying himself as a financial wizard, he took “the country's political system hostage”, allegedly building a massive network of tame “economists, influencers, bureaucrats, politicians and judges”. In the months since his arrest, tantalising details of high-level hobnobbing have emerged.

The Brazilian newspaper Gazeta do Povo compares Vocaro's reach into the Brazilian establishment with Jeffrey Epstein's mastery of US power circles. Certainly, the tactics were similar, says The Economist. Vocaro revelled in his “playboy” lifestyle – inviting politicians “to lavish parties with sex-workers” and feting several Supreme Court judges. His bank was essentially a “Ponzi scheme with an influence-peddling operation attached”: Bernie Madoff meets Jeffrey Epstein.

Daniel Bueno Vorcaro was born in southeastern Brazil in 1983 – the son of a real- estate broker, says The Capital Review. Vorcaro studied for a degree and then an MBA at the Brazilian Institute of Capital Markets and embarked on a series of business ventures before getting into banking in 2018, when he struck an agreement to acquire Banco Maxima and rebranded it Banco Master.

“What followed was a period of extraordinary – and, as investigators now allege, artificially inflated – growth.” The engine was “an aggressive retail strategy” based on extensive issuance of bank deposit certificates offering returns way above the market average. “Ordinary Brazilians, lured by yields that rivals couldn't match, poured their savings in.” What they didn't know was that “much of the bank's asset base was hollow”.

Daniel Vorcaro spent millions wooing Brazil's political class

Daniel Vorcaro put substantial effort into wooing Brazil's political right. He spent millions financing Dark Horse, a biopic of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was jailed for orchestrating an attempted coup in 2022 – reportedly at the request of the latter's son, Flavio Bolsonaro, a senator and presidential candidate who until recently denied he'd ever met Vorcaro. But perhaps most worrying, says The Economist, are the relationships forged with leading members of Brazil's judiciary – not least Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes, whose lawyer wife was recently revealed to have signed a $25.5 million contract with Banco Master.

As the probe into Vorcaro's affairs – dubbed Operation Compliance Zero – continues, comparisons with the “car-wash” bribery scandal that rocked Brazil a decade ago are inevitable, says Bloomberg. Much as it might like to, Brasilia's political class can't “put the Master case behind it”. Still, the “biggest loser”, says The Economist, is democracy. Amid all the corruption scandals that have tarnished their country, Brazilians at least used to trust their top court. “Now that trust is fraying.” Corruption at the heart of the country's institutions “could undermine trust in democracy more than Bolsonaro ever did”.

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Revolut co-founder and CEO, Nik Storonsky, has often boasted about his plans to take Revolut from a private tech start-up to a banking giant with technology so advanced, other banks would not be able to compete.

In just over a year after receiving its full banking license, Revolut has done just that. It has become the first UK bank to roll out biometric payments, allowing you to make payments at a store using facial recognition only.

I was invited to demo the system - Pay with Smile - at a nearby coffee shop in London. The face recognition technology requires a customer to simply look at a camera at the till point, smile, and 'kerching'. I was told you don’t have to smile if you’re not the smiley type, but you do have to be moving to ensure the camera is capturing a real person and not just a photo of one.

“And what if you have a twin?” I asked. Revolut said the technology is advanced enough to know the difference between them, recognising distinctive features in movement.

A Revolut colleague guided me through the system. He ordered a coffee, looked into a camera at the till, and in around 3 seconds his payment was made. There is no need to have a phone, card or wallet at hand – and in fact, your phone could be at home.

Alex Codina, general manager of merchant payments at Revolut Business, said: “By combining high-performance processing with facial recognition technology, we’ll replace outdated, fragmented tills with a hyper-efficient checkout experience designed to solve consumer and merchant pain points.”

Revolut claims merchants lose around £2,500 a year in technical glitches and that its advanced technology can help avoid losses caused by terminal outages.

For its banking customers, it claims it offers a speedy way to pay, and perfect for when you are out for a run perhaps and choose not to take your phone, forget it, or want a stress free way to pay without digging out your phone from your bag.

Revolut has started the roll out this week, but is yet to announce which retailers will be adopting this new technology.

Would you pay with facial recognition?

If you have a modern smartphone, then you are no stranger to facial recognition technology. But while you may happily use it to unlock your device and open apps, using your face to pay at stores may feel futuristic.

As you may expect, my first question to Revolut was over safety. Sharing biometrics over till points feels risky and could possibly leave you vulnerable to hackers, but Revolut assured me that no data is stored and staff at till points cannot access the information. It comes with high level banking security and similar technology used in Apple products.

I felt safe with this new advanced tech, but whether it is the future of payments is yet to be seen. Merchants would need to purchase a Revolut register, which is being offered at 0% processing fees. But, while it may feel attractive to small independent retailers like Kiss the Hippo, the coffee store where the biometric payments are available, the real game changer will be when the likes of Tesco or Sainsbury's adopt the system.

Who can use biometric payments?

If you have a Revolut account, you can use facial recognition payments where available.

You do not have to have a premium Revolut account, but you must opt in and scan a QR code at the store for first time use, after which you can be phone-less.

There are no costs to use it, but you may be limited to purchases of up to £200 and there will be times when you have a pin prompt, but you do this on the merchant’s screen and do not need your contactless device at hand.

While I was impressed with the tech, I'd like to hear what you think.

The government is reportedly looking at increasing capital gains tax (CGT) rates to help those on the lowest incomes.

The prime minister Andy Burnham and chancellor John Healey are understood to be mooting raising capital gains tax rates to as high as 45% to pay for a potential £3,000 hike to the tax-free personal allowance from £12,570 to £15,570.

The proposal is presented in a Budget submission from the Labour donor and green energy entrepreneur Dale Vince, The Telegraph reports.

According to modelling by economic research institute the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) commissioned by Vince and seen by the publication, a £3,000 increase in the personal allowance would leave the lowest fifth of earners £600 a year better off.

It would cost the Treasury £20 billion but could be funded by increasing CGT rates and ending interest payments on Bank of England reserves while Vince said giving money back to lower earners through a lower income tax bill would also help stimulate the economy.

The proposals are reportedly being considered by the Treasury and No.10 ahead of the Autumn Budget next month.

A Treasury spokesperson said: “As has always been the case, decisions on tax are a matter for the chancellor to set out at fiscal events, rather than routinely commenting on rumour, speculation or proposals.”

What are the current rates of capital gains tax?

Currently, basic rate taxpayers pay a capital gains tax rate of 18%, while higher and additional rate taxpayers pay 24%.

The capital gains tax allowance is £3,000 per year, so you’re only taxed on any capital gains which exceeds this.

CGT has been targeted by both the previous Conservative Party government and the current Labour government in recent years.

The lower and higher rates of CGT were raised with immediate effect in the 2024 Autumn Budget while the tax-free allowance was slashed from £12,300 to £6,000 in 2023 and then halved to £3,000 in 2024.

Is there support for a capital gains tax hike?

A number of people close to Burnham have called for a change in the CGT rules to drum up cash for the Treasury.

In May, Louise Haigh, now first secretary of state, called for CGT to be brought closer to income tax rates.

“It would shift the taxation burden away from punishing work, and towards unproductive capital accumulation which does little to grow the everyday economy,” she said in an essay published in the Renewal journal.

In the same month, defence secretary Wes Streeting also called for CGT rates to rise in line with income tax bands.

Dan Neidle, tax lawyer and founder of the Tax Policy Associates think tank, said he thought Streeting’s proposal was “good”, suggesting the extra money brought in from raising CGT could be used to cut the basic rate of income tax.

“That would be a brave thing for a Labour politician to do, but in my opinion the right thing at this moment. Spend the rest on e.g. defence,” Neidle said.

However, the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) has suggested significantly raising CGT rates could actually cost the Treasury money, as it would lead to behavioural changes.

Daniel Herring, head of economic and fiscal policy at the CPS, said: “It punishes the kind of productive investment the country needs to grow, those most likely to pay it can and will leave the country.”

Soaring oil prices have pushed UK inflation to a five-month high. Consumer prices rose 3.1% in the year to August. Motor fuel prices rose nearly a quarter, with petrol rising to 161.3p per litre and diesel hitting 181.8p. Brent crude is back above $100 a barrel. Trading at $108 as of Wednesday, it has risen 78% since the start of the year.

While there is no end in sight to America's war with Iran, until recently the White House had seemed to be gaining the upper hand in the economic battle. Despite the closure of the vital Strait of Hormuz artery, oil prices had stayed below $100 for several months. That was in large measure thanks to clandestine shipments through the strait – high-risk “dark crossings” made by crude tankers with their transponders turned off so as to evade Iranian detection, say Dmitry Zhdannikov and Anushree Ashish Mukherjee for Reuters.

Together with pipelines that circumvent the Strait of Hormuz, the “industry consensus” is that roughly two-thirds of pre-war Persian Gulf volumes are still making their way out of the region. All told, such “dark shipments” may have reached 500 million barrels between June and August, enough to put a meaningful dent in the world's thirst for fuel.

Now the pendulum is swinging the other way. Last week, Saudi Arabia was forced to close its vital east-west pipeline following attacks by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq. That may cut global oil supplies by as much as 3.6 million barrels per day, equivalent to 3.6% of global demand, according to analysis by Kpler.

Pipelines have been a major tool for bypassing Hormuz, but these strikes are a reminder that they can be destroyed, Anne-Sophie Corbeau of Columbia University tells the BBC. In war, pipelines are “sitting ducks”.

Meanwhile, the alternative Red Sea route is coming under renewed threat from Yemen's Houthi militia, says Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times. The Houthis are a tough nut to crack. They have been fighting better-equipped enemies for more than two decades. The persistence of the Taliban, another US adversary that ultimately outlasted Washington's patience, comes to mind. Another vital energy route is being squeezed just as the northern hemisphere enters winter.

Surging oil price at the root of the debt crisis

Surging energy prices and inflation are the root cause of the global spike in government borrowing costs, says Aaron Back in The Wall Street Journal. The benchmark US ten-year Treasury this week topped 5% to hit its highest level since 2007. After years of deficit spending and the “twin crises” of Covid-19 and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the world's developed nations entered this year in a “weakened fiscal position”. That was “the dry timber that the Iran war now threatens to set ablaze”.

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“We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans!”, says Anthropic researcher Evan Hubinger on X. He thinks there is more than a 10% chance we could all be dead “within the next decade”. Talk of AI's apocalyptic potential is in the air. Senior figures at AI labs are said to be terrified by the capabilities of recent models, which could be used to create bioweapons or elude human control and go rogue. The panic hit a new level at the weekend when a group of AI CEOs, including Dario Amodei – Hubinger's boss at Anthropic – publicly backed calls for a slowdown in AI development.

Anthropic: the AI company at the centre of a media storm

Scary stuff. Perhaps Silicon Valley really has been seized by a collective spasm of conscience about the consequences of building AI. Or maybe this is a PR campaign so slick and devious that it would make Alastair Campbell weep. For one thing, the timing is highly suspicious. Anthropic, the AI startup at the centre of the current media storm, is preparing to launch the largest initial public offering (IPO) in history in a matter of weeks.

A basic tenet of critical thinking is to pay attention to vested interests. Dario Amodei is not a neutral commentator. He is trying to secure an IPO valuation of up to $2 trillion. Yet much of the tech media, keen for a dramatic story, uncritically treats the self-serving pronouncements of AI executives as objective statements of fact.

The more conspiratorially minded pointed out that the tweet by Jacob Coxon, the Anthropic researcher whose resignation triggered the latest news cycle, was viewed 140 million times despite the fact that his account had almost no prior activity. While Coxon's concerns are probably genuine, the way his message was picked up and boosted by multiple influential figures appears less than organic.

On the face of it, it's not obvious how dire warnings about existential risk would be beneficial to the AI industry. Big tobacco spent years suppressing information about the dangers of its products. So why are AI executives so keen to talk about how their technology could be used by terrorists or lead to the extinction of swathes of white-collar work?

Is Anthropic doom trolling?

The answer, as Cal Newport, a computer science professor at Georgetown University, argues, is the pervasive use of a marketing technique he calls “doom trolling” (a spin on phone addicts' “doom scrolling”). Fear sells. Outrageous claims about the dangers of large language models (LLMs – the currently favoured AI technology) go viral, generating vast amounts of free media coverage for the company that originated them. Talk of existential risk makes AI products appear hugely powerful and desirable.

This buzz helps to distract from the less exciting reality. Yes, LLMs can do impressive things in highly structured domains such as coding and translation, where clear failure conditions help limit their tendency to go off the rails. In other areas (including journalism), their catastrophic tendency to make up information greatly circumscribes their usefulness.

In short, the LLM is a new software category, but investors are not going to pay trillions of dollars for a newer version of Microsoft Excel. Instead, these tools must be imbued with a dark, apocalyptic glamour. Such doom-mongering is longstanding industry practice. As Parmy Olson notes on Bloomberg, in 2019 OpenAI said it would hold back its GPT-2 model from general release on the grounds that it was too dangerous – this for an LLM that struggled to answer primary-school-level reasoning tasks. Terrifying indeed.

This year the AI doom campaign has been turned up to max. Barely a week goes by without claims (all originating from within the AI companies themselves) that a bot has gone on a rogue hacking spree, CEOs, including Anthropic's Dario Amodei, have backed a slowdown in the development of AI or that a new model can't be released because it creates serious cybersecurity risks (it is then released shortly afterwards anyway). The effect has been to generate precisely the sort of frenzied atmosphere that one would want to surround a trio of high-stakes AI-linked IPOs: SpaceX in June, Anthropic scheduled for October, and OpenAI sometime next year.

Who benefits from AI doom trolling?

The AI industry's calls for regulation carry the whiff of “regulatory capture”. Government red tape is more burdensome for upstarts than it is for big established players. New safety regulations could help AI leaders throttle the competition. There is persistent suspicion that Anthropic's Amodei would like to see regulations that effectively excludes his main competitor – cheaper, open-source, often Chinese AI – from major Western countries. If you can't beat them, ban them.

It is also possible that calls for a slowdown represent an attempt to put a brave face on the fact that the AI arms race is becoming too expensive. OpenAI is on course to spend $45 billion this year alone on training and inference (the cost of running AI), but the performance of new models is running into diminishing returns. That isn't an ideal backdrop in which to successfully list a growth company. Instead of breaking the bad news to investors and tanking the valuation, why not piously tell the media you are choosing to slow down development because of your abundant love for humankind?

Don't fall for the hype

What does all this mean for ordinary investors? For starters, don't fall for the tech hype machine. Steer clear of this year's big flashy IPOs, a crowded trade if ever there were one. Secondly, diversify widely. Continue to look for the sort of underexplored investment themes that we cover in depth. And finally, keep your head. There is no knowing how long the current AI fever will last, nor exactly how wide the damage will be when it breaks, but you can at least regain some tranquillity by tuning out the endless talk of doom. Perhaps AI really will kill us all in some hypothetical future. But for now, it is the AI-marketing hype that represents a clear and present danger to our collective mental health.

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