Type Private Founder Alastair Whitehead Founded 1994 | Industry Financial Services Headquarters Haddenham | |
Predecessor Independent Research Group Key people Zahid Bilgrami (CEO)
Alastair Brown (CFO)
Remko Bijtjes (Commercial Director)
Paul Dagley Morris (CTO) Products Defaqto Ratings
Defaqto Matrix
Defaqto Engage | ||
Defaqto is an independent researcher of financial products, focused on providing intelligence to support better financial decision-making. At its heart is its financial product and fund database consisting of data from across the whole UK market. From this, Defaqto creates a range of products and services – ratings, software solutions, data services, and publications and events.
Contents
Ratings
Defaqto produce a range of independent ratings to help consumers understand how financial products fit into the market place.
The ratings are created as expert revenues of financial products (such as Michelin reviews) as opposed to consumer revenues (such as TripAdvisor).
Star Ratings
Ratings are based on the quality and comprehensiveness of the features and benefits it offers. Defaqto rate individual propositions, not the provider of the product, across more than 60 categories – including banking, general insurance, life and protection, and pensions and investments.
Star Ratings give a product or proposition a rating of 1 to 5, depending on the quality and comprehensiveness of the features it offers. A 4 or 5 Star Rating indicates that a product or proposition represents one of the best quality offerings in the market. The ratings focus on the quality of the product as opposed to its price or the service that you may receive from contact with the provider.
Diamond Ratings
Ratings help identify where funds and fund families sit in the market, Defaqto Diamond Ratings provide an independent rating based on fund performance, plus various risk attributes where applicable, and a range of other key fund attributes – including cost, scale, access and manager longevity.
Operations
Defaqto are based in Haddenham, Buckinghamshire.
History
Defaqto was founded as the Independent Research Group by Alastair Whitehead in 1994, initially focusing on life pensions products.
The business was acquired by Find Portal in 2006 in order to grow the presence in the consumer space.
The management of Defaqto completed a management buy-out supported by Synova Capital in March 2015.