Matthew Burrows
UK finance, written from inside the industry — for the people it actually affects.
What & Why
You’re scrolling through the news, coffee in hand, when you’re jabbed with another dross headline about “quantitative easing” or “fiscal drag.” Your eyes shoot across, your ears ring with foreign soundwaves, you change the channel and… onto something else. Sound familiar?
So, here’s the annoying thing – that story probably contained information that directly affects your mortgage, your savings, maybe even your job. Information you could benefit from knowing. Not that you were given much of a chance of course. That would be too easy!
I’ve spent the past decade working alongside some of the world’s largest financial institutions and I’ll let you in on a scary secret: half the people (myself included) using these fancy terms don’t fully understand them either. They just got really good at nodding along in meetings. My neck strength now rivals that of a F1 driver.
This site exists because I got tired of watching smart people feel stupid about money. Friends would forward articles asking, “Should I be worried about this?” Family members would call, confused about their pensions. Colleagues would whisper questions they felt too embarrassed to ask in public. The common thread? Financial news that read like it was written by the elite, for the elite, about robot money.
So here’s what we will do differently: We learn about the stuff that matters – the stuff that actually impacts your wallet – and we tell you about it. Freshly transcribed from Finance Speak, into Human Speak. No gatekeeping, no assumption you’ve got a Master’s from Cambridge gathering dust somewhere, no pretending that understanding cryptocurrency makes you morally superior (though we will tackle crypto, because someone needs to explain what the hell is actually going on there).
Think of me as your financial translator. We’re having a chat, I’m breaking down what just happened in the world of finance, and most importantly, I’m telling you why you should (or shouldn’t) care. Because whether it’s inflation eating into your savings or central banks playing musical chairs with interest rates, this stuff affects all of us.
The financial world loves its ‘Members Club’ atmosphere. Consider this your permanent guest pass. Welcome to finance for us normal humans. Pull up a pew.
Who’s writing this?
I’ve picked up a handful of industry certifications along the way, but honestly — they’re not what makes me able to write this stuff. What actually teaches you about money is over a decade: sitting in the rooms where it’s decided, at the kitchen tables where it’s worried about, and in most of the roles in between. Paper never defined my work. Experience did. So no credentials wall on this page. Just what I’ve actually done — and from that, you can decide for yourself whether I’m worth your time.
Retail banking
Five years customer-facing UK retail banking, progressing to management.
Technical recruitment
Tier-1 banks and FTSE 100s. Financial IT, trading systems, enterprise tech.
Senior consultant, data & BI
Digital transformation and legacy-system overhauls across tier-1 UK institutions.
Account management
Six-month contract across large banks, building societies, FTSE 100 and 250.
Consultancy lead
Led project management on teams of 50+. Multi-million-pound programmes for UK banks and building societies.
Specialist lending
Bridging, buy-to-let, commercial lending — regulated and unregulated. Now in management.
Work has primarily been in the City of London and Canary Wharf, with significant client engagements across the Netherlands, New York, and the technical centres in Poland and Romania where much of modern banking quietly runs.
Having seen finance from the retail side, the institutional side, the banking side and the trading side — it gives me a different perspective than others may see. Understanding what a customer might need, and seeing how that need is delivered.
How I work
-
Never advice.
Not once, not ever. I’ll report, I’ll explain, I’ll give you the maths. But I’ll never tell you what to do with your money — that’s for you, and if it gets complicated, for a regulated adviser.
-
Education, not recommendations.
When I write about a stock, a fund, or a crypto project, I’m walking through the facts — credentials, context, what’s real and what isn’t. I’m not telling you to buy. Or sell. You get the information. You make the call.
-
Facts, not politics.
If a political decision affects what lands in your pocket or comes out of it, I’ll write about it — numbers, mechanics, who it hits. But this site doesn’t campaign, doesn’t endorse, and doesn’t align. Just facts, framed for the people those decisions actually touch.
-
Primary sources.
In the tools, calculators and guides, every number, every rule, every threshold traces back to its primary source — HMRC, gov.uk, the Bank of England. In news and analysis, I cite the facts that matter and make clear when I’m sharing a view rather than reporting one.
-
Written by me.
Every piece here is mine — researched, drafted, rewritten. This site takes hours of real work each day, and every word on it reflects that. AI may sit quietly in the background to check a number or structure a draft, but the thinking, the framing, the sentences are all me. That’s the whole point.
Who funds this?
Nobody. Not yet. The site and the newsletter are a personal project — self-funded with my own time and money, built on the stubborn belief that UK finance should be explainable without a Members Club badge at the door.
No ads. No affiliate links. No sponsored content. No paid placements. No silent arrangements behind the scenes. What you read here hasn’t been paid for by anyone with a product to sell.
One day, if the newsletter grows into something that can sustain itself, there may be sponsors there — named, properly labelled, clearly disclosed, and never allowed anywhere near the editorial. I don’t take money in exchange for coverage. That’s the line, and it doesn’t move.
Further reading
The principles in “How I work” above are backed by three operational documents. If you want the detail behind them — how content is sourced and verified, how every calculator is built and validated, how errors are reported and fixed — these are the full versions.
