CFO views on 2026

CFO views on 2026

The latest Deloitte survey of chief financial officers, conducted between 2 and 14 December, shows business sentiment and risk appetite edging up from the autumn lows but continuing to run at below average levels. As in late 2023 and 2024, CFOs see geopolitics, poor UK productivity and weak competitiveness as the top external risks to their businesses in the coming year. Revenue prospects have improved, and CFOs expect inflation, wage pressures and interest rates to ease over the next 12 months. Cost control remains the top balance sheet priority, but slightly less so than in recent quarters. Meanwhile CFO sentiment on capital investment, though subdued, has seen the largest increase since the UK began to emerge from the pandemic.

• CFOs are upbeat on tech investment and optimistic about the potential for AI to boost productivity in the long term. 59% of CFOs have become more optimistic over the past 12 months on the potential for AI to boost the performance of their own organisation, up from 39% when last measured in the third quarter of 2024. CFOs believe that technology investment will help lift business performance over the next five years, but expect these gains to be backloaded, with CFOs mostly reporting they expect little change in performance over the next 12 months.

• The UK economy grew at just over 1.0% in 2024 and 2025. With CFO confidence and risk appetite at subdued levels, a similar outturn for growth seems likely in 2026. CFOs are positive about the impact of AI in the longer run, but for now the UK lacks a strong impetus for a return to the faster growth rates that prevailed before the pandemic.

OUR REVIEW OF LAST WEEK’S NEWS
The UK FTSE 100 equity index rallied at the start of the year, briefly surpassing 10,000 for the first time following strong gains in banking, mining and defence stocks. The index ended last week at 9,955.

Economics

• Oil prices increased to $61.60 per barrel due to increased uncertainty following the US military’s capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela currently accounts for less than 1% of global oil output
• The UK government will be required to raise taxes again before the next election, according to a poll of leading economists conducted by the FT, amid weak growth and political pressures to increase public spending
• UK house prices rose 0.6% in 2025, according to Nationwide
• Over 200,000 jobs across the European banking industry, equivalent to 10% of the current workforce, could be lost to digitalisation and developments in AI, according to forecasts from Morgan Stanley
• Bulgaria joined the euro area on 1 January, despite recent political protests that saw the prime minister resign in December last year

Business

• Shares in US oil companies rose following the US military’s capture of Mr Maduro and comments by US president Donald Trump that the US oil companies will invest billions in Venezuela
• Chinese electric vehicle company BYD overtook Tesla as the world’s biggest EV manufacturer last year, selling 2.3m cars globally compared with 1.6m sold by Tesla
• US private companies SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic are preparing for public offerings, the FT reports, which could occur as early as this year
• Energy companies Equinor and Ørsted launched legal action against the US government in a bid to overturn a government order to halt construction of offshore wind projects
• Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk launched a weight loss pill in the US, costing significantly less than the injectable version of the drug, the latest release in an increasingly competitive weight loss market
• Dating apps and online dating websites are pivoting to Asian markets amid stagnating growth across western economies and changing attitudes to online dating across Asia

Global and political developments

• The US military captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and faces drug-trafficking charges in a New York court. Mr Maduro’s former vice president Delcy Rodríguez became Venezuela’s interim leader
• Mr Trump said the US would “rescue” protesters in Iran if the Iranian government responded violently to nationwide protests fuelled by high inflation and falling living standards
• Denmark’s prime minister Mette Frederiksen urged the US government to stop threatening to seize Greenland following recent comments by Mr Trump
• UK prime minister Keir Starmer said he wants a closer alignment between the UK and the EU’s single market, saying it is in the UK’s national interest for a tighter UK-EU relationship
• The number of migrants arriving in the UK via small boats increased to nearly 41,500 in 2025, a 13% increase from the previous year
• The UK government said the UK and French militaries bombed an underground weapons store in Syria used by ISIS militants
• Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced a reshuffle of his top team following a previous government corruption scandal
• Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as New York’s mayor after his election success that pledged to freeze rents, introduce free childcare and buses, and impose higher taxes on millionaires

And finally… to mark the end of 232 years of production, the US Mint auctioned the last pennies ever created in December, with the last three selling for $800,000 – pretty penny