Why efg Exists

We, the people behind EFG, work in finance, banking, investment and are involved in the infrastructure that moves money around the world every day.

We are forced to work in the very system that we would like to change.

The Insider Problem

You cannot fix a machine you do not understand.

That sounds obvious. But it is the reason most criticism of the financial system never lands. It comes from the outside — from people who are rightfully angry but who are told, over and over, that they just don't understand how it works. That the system is too complex. That it is the way it is for good reason.

The system loves this defence. It has been using it for decades.

But what happens when the criticism comes from inside? When the people saying "this is broken" are the same people who spent years building, maintaining, and profiting from the machine?

That is harder to dismiss. Especially when it comes with sensible solutions

EFG exists because we have seen how the system works from the inside. We know where the money goes. We know what gets funded and what gets ignored. We know the difference between a label that sounds ethical and an investment that actually is.

And we think you need to know too.

It Has Been Done Before

In 2004, a man named Paul Moore was Head of Group Regulatory Risk at HBOS — one of the largest banking groups in the UK. His job was to identify threats to the bank. He was, by any definition, an insider.

Moore did his job. He identified a serious one: the bank was lending recklessly, taking on far more risk than it could handle, and the culture at the top was suppressing anyone who raised concerns.

He reported it. He escalated it. He put it in writing.

They fired him.

Four years later, HBOS collapsed. It had to be rescued in a government-brokered takeover by Lloyds — a deal that nearly brought Lloyds down with it. The taxpayer picked up the bill. Moore's warnings had been exactly right.

He later testified before Parliament. His evidence helped reshape how regulators thought about risk culture in banking. But here is the part that matters for us: none of it would have been possible if Moore had not understood the system from the inside. He did not need someone to explain fractional reserve lending to him. He did not need a jargon-free guide to risk management. He already knew. And that knowledge — insider knowledge — was what made his voice impossible to ignore.

The Pattern

Moore is not an isolated case. Brooksley Born, the chair of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the late 1990s, tried to regulate the derivatives market before it nearly destroyed the global economy in 2008. She understood exactly what was coming. She was overruled by the very people the system was designed to protect.

The pattern is always the same. Insiders see the problem. The system resists. The public pays the price.

The question is what you do with that pattern once you recognise it.

The First Step Is Understanding

EFG is not a protest. It is not a campaign. It is not trying to tear anything down.

It is trying to explain.

Because the first step to changing anything — truly changing it, not just being angry about it — is understanding how it works. Where your money goes when you open a bank account. What your pension is actually invested in. Why the label says "sustainable" but the portfolio tells a different story.

These are not radical questions. They are basic ones. But the system has never had any incentive to answer them — because the moment you understand, you start making different choices. And different choices are the one thing the machine is not built for.

That is why this project is built by people who work inside the system. Not because we have been corrupted by it. Because we understand it well enough to explain it plainly.

Knowledge first. Then choices. Then change.

If you want to know what EFG actually is — what it does — read the about page. If you want to start understanding where your money goes, begin with What Is Wrong With the Financial System. And if you want to be part of the conversation, join the community.