Monument Bank wealthy clients are expressing genuine fear about the future and about making the wrong financial decisions ahead of the forthcoming Budget, according to the bank’s chief executive Ian Rand. Rand says the anxiety is unlike anything he has heard before, driven by a combination of economic uncertainty and a run of tax changes that have already begun to bite.
Monument Bank wealthy clients fear ‘doing the wrong thing’
Monument caters to account holders with six figures of investable assets. Rand describes the typical customer as someone who ‘looks wealthy on paper but doesn’t feel it,’ and he told City AM that description has ‘never been more true’ than now.
‘I would say that fear is genuinely a word we hear quite a lot when we talk to our customers,’ Rand said, ‘fear of the future but also fear of doing the wrong thing.’ He named changes to inheritance tax, rental property rules and VAT on private schools as ‘things that are landing on this community,’ adding that clients ‘are having to think about things quite differently than they’ve thought of before.’
On what any Budget can realistically deliver, Rand was measured. ‘We’ll see how much clarity we get from the Budget, but with any budget, the next thing is there’s going to be another one,’ he said. His broader read is that ‘the direction of travel is very clear that property and wealth are likely going to be more challenging going forward.’
He also pointed to a gap below the threshold of those wealthy enough to take professional advice. For many people ‘not wealthy enough to have a financial advisor,’ Rand said, there is ‘a real concern that they don’t know how to best protect and grow their wealth.’
Budget backdrop: fiscal headroom and spending commitments
The comments arrive as John Healey prepares to deliver his first Budget at the end of the month, with many expecting further pressure on household finances. Economists have forecast that Healey’s fiscal headroom, which stood at £23.6bn in March, could have halved as a result of the Iran war, meaning spending cuts or tax increases would be needed to meet the government’s fiscal rules.
At the same time, Prime Minister Andy Burnham has put forward a series of spending commitments, including nationalisation plans, a cap on bus fares and the removal of VAT from energy bills. Burnham has previously said there needs to be a ‘greater sense of fairness and people feeling that things are being done in the right way and in a fair way.’ Those commitments add further complexity to HM Treasury’s arithmetic ahead of the statement.
Monument’s financials: growth at a cost
The remarks from Rand coincide with Monument’s publication of its accounts for the 2025 financial year. Net income grew 35 per cent to £13.9m, and interest income rose 87 per cent to £149m. The bank’s losses, however, widened to £19.4m from £14.5m the prior year.
Rand attributed the wider losses to investment in Monument’s banking-platform-as-a-service arm, framing the spending as deliberate rather than symptomatic of any underlying weakness. ‘Obviously we’re very keen to hit profitability as soon as we can but for us 2026 has been a year of build,’ he said.
He was unapologetic about the pace of that investment. ‘We have no problem investing in the business, and we know that strong profitability will be the outcome,’ Rand added. ‘No one wants to be small and profitable. We’ll get large and profitable.’
For Monument’s customers, however, the more pressing question is not the bank’s growth trajectory but whether the Budget brings any of the certainty they are currently missing. Rand’s accounts suggest that, whatever the Chancellor announces, many of his clients will simply be waiting for the one after it.
