Find

Find is a leading directory and comparator site for retail financial services.

Content is divided into different areas: banking, credit cards, investments, loans, mortgages, pensions and insurance. Each section features directory listings, best-buy tables, product guides and tools.

Find also features information on IFAs and for businesses and investors.

The main difficulty with all this information is organisation, and this is where the deficiencies lie.

Directory listings are spread over two web pages. First-page listings (presumably paid listings) come with thumbnail descriptions. Second page listings are, well, just lists of names without any way of choosing between them. This is particularly evident in the Loans, Mortgages and Insurance departments. There seems to be no practical reason for carrying the page-2 content and readers should stick to the page-one listings and the best-buys.

Content is sometimes duplicated. For example, Personal Loans carries content contained under Secured, Unsecured and Adverse Credit loans. Add page-2 syndrome, and this can be doubly confusing.

Listings are sometimes wrongly categorised or misfiled. For instance, the Online Share-dealing section contains listings for offshore mutual fund trading, spread betting and CFDs. Spread betting listings find their way into the Derivatives & Options area. Fidelity Share-Network is listed as a Growth Fund best-buy, whereas it is an online stockbroking service. Fund management companies find their way into Investment Performance & Analysis…. You get my drift.

Some product guides (notably pensions) are out of date and should have been withdrawn or updated long ago.

Navigation is relatively straightforward from the overhead menus. Headline topics desegregate into sub-areas (e.g. Insurance breaks down into homes, pet, travel, commercial, specialist, motor, life and commercial). Listings, news guides and tools are similarly accessible from an overhead menu in each sub-category.