If you’ve ever tried reading a corporate financial report from a FTSE 100 company while half-awake, you probably wondered if anyone actually wanted you to understand it. Now imagine you’re a stakeholder — or worse, an investor — with real money in the game. Bad writing in financial communication isn’t just annoying. It can cost companies trust, money, even legal trouble.
So why are financial teams still churning out reports that feel like they were generated by a malfunctioning AI from the 1980s?
That’s what this article wants to wrestle with. Not fixed, necessarily. Just wrestle with it.
Business Writing Is Still Treated Like a Technical Requirement
A lot of financial professionals in the UK learn to write by copying previous reports. That’s it. Nobody really teaches them how to communicate. Just how to format things correctly. Stick the numbers in the table. Keep the tone formal. Use the right jargon. The end.
But that kind of thinking turns writing into a compliance issue instead of what it really is—an opportunity to tell people what’s happening inside the company in a way that’s actually readable.
Clarity isn’t some fluffy bonus. It’s strategic. It’s what makes shareholders believe the people running the company know what they’re doing.
Why This Matters More in the UK Than You’d Think?
UK finance is weirdly obsessed with presentation. There’s something culturally specific about how much emphasis is placed on sounding “proper” in corporate documents. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) even commented in a 2022 statement that financial disclosures remain “dense and inconsistent.”
That might sound dry, but what they’re saying is: most of this stuff is unreadable.
What makes things worse is that everyone pretends like this isn’t a problem. They nod along like they understood all 98 pages of HSBC’s quarterly results when really, they skimmed the charts and hoped for the best.
This is where learning how to write clearly — like really clearly — can flip the script. Even students who’ve gotten good at breaking down complex topics for assignments can contribute something here. Those skills are more transferable than people think.
If you’ve ever used a cheap thesis writing service to get help untangling academic language, you’ve already seen how stripping something back makes it stronger. Same logic applies to financial reports. Shorter sentences. Direct language. Sentences that don’t make you question your will to live.
Writing for Numbers Requires Imagination, Weirdly
People think numbers speak for themselves. But they don’t. Not even close.
There’s always an interpretation behind a chart. Why revenues dropped. Why customer churn increased. Why is EBIT lower this quarter? And the story around those numbers can either calm people down or send them spiraling.
Think about the difference between these two sentences:
- Revenue was down 12.3% due to market fluctuations.
A 12.3% revenue drop reflects fewer large enterprise renewals in Q1, which we’re already addressing by restructuring the sales team.
The first one says something. But the second one does something. It gives people a thread to follow. And most of the time, that’s what financial communication fails to do — give people a human thread.
That’s why some students working on business degrees actually get an edge when they start out in investor relations. They know how to combine technical accuracy with narrative structure. They know how to take raw material and make it coherent.
Some of them even trained using a reputable essay writing service, where they watched their jumbled ideas turn into structured, logical arguments. If you think about it, that’s basically what a CFO does in writing. They just have more zeroes involved.
Corporate Jargon Isn’t a Strategy
Let’s call it what it is. Most corporate financial writing is scary writing. People hide behind phrases like “strategic realignment” or “macroeconomic headwinds” because they’re afraid to say something real.
But vague writing leads to vague thinking. And vague thinking gets companies into trouble. If you can’t explain what went wrong in a way your grandma could understand, maybe you don’t understand it either.
Clarity doesn’t mean dumbing things down. It means making choices. Cutting the noise. Picking a side in your own story.
And if someone in finance wants to practice that skill, they should start with their emails. If your internal updates still sound like policy briefings, maybe that’s the problem.
Investors Are People, Too
Warren Buffett famously said he writes his annual letters to his sisters — not to Wall Street. Because he wants them to understand. And you know what? People love it. Berkshire Hathaway’s reports aren’t just clear. They’re interesting. You feel like someone is talking to you, not at you.
UK companies would benefit from adopting a little of that tone. Doesn’t mean going casual. But it means writing with the assumption that humans are reading. Not robots.
Investor confidence doesn’t come from perfectly bulletproof grammar. It comes from tone, openness, and the ability to explain where the ship is headed.
So What Should Students Do With This Info?
Here’s a weird idea: if you’re studying finance or business, start reading bad financial writing. Seriously. Go download three random annual reports from UK-listed companies and try to make sense of them. Then rewrite a paragraph or two like you’re explaining it to a 16-year-old cousin.
You’ll probably find it harder than expected.
But that’s how you build skill. Not just by knowing what EBITDA means. But by learning how to tell someone why it matters in two sentences instead of two pages.
If you can do that, you’re already ahead of people with five more years of experience and ten more slides in their decks.
Clear writing in finance isn’t just a “nice to have.” It’s a tool. A secret weapon. One that students are uniquely positioned to develop early — before the corporate machine gets to them.
And who knows? Maybe someday you’ll be the person at Barclays or NatWest who writes the one investor report people actually read all the way through. Wouldn’t that be something?
To read more content like this, explore The Brand Hopper
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