Category: Consumer vulnerability

How FinTechs can help reduce harm from gambling

Posted on by david.collings

By Sharon Collard
Please note: This blog discusses harmful gambling and its impacts.  

In July 2023, a team from the Personal Finance Research Centre, FinTech West and the lived experience-led charity Gambling Harm UK delivered a workshop to consider how FinTech can help reduce harm from gambling. This was a great example of ‘grounded innovation’ in action: bringing FinTechs together with people who have lived experience of gambling harms to focus on real-life issues and how to solve them.  

It highlighted useful products and services that FinTech firms already offer as well as opportunities for further innovation. Most of all, it showed the invaluable contribution that experts-by-experience like Gambling Harm UK bring to the table.  

We are grateful to Higher Education Innovation Funding for funding the workshop.  

Graphic showing a series of light bulbs, with one light bulb switched on.

Helping FinTechs understand the harms caused by gambling problems 

A key part of the workshop was Chris Gilham, Julie Martin and John Gilham from Gambling Harm UK sharing their own personal experiences, which illustrated the complex and messy nature of gambling problems and their serious long-term impacts.  

Chris told us about having been diagnosed with Adult ADHD just over eighteen months ago at almost 40 years of age, and how he has battled with his mental health since his mid-teens and using alcohol to cope. Then when he was 30 years old, having had no previous interest in gambling, he saw an advert and that day, he decided to try it. He explained that whilst gambling initially made him feel calmer, it wasn’t long before he was suffering from gambling harm. After almost five years of harm he finally found recovery following a two-day gambling binge, when he was planning to win and leave money to his family before ending his own life. Julie described the severe financial toll that her ex-husband’s gambling had on her and her children, meaning she had to work four jobs just to pay off loans he had taken out in her name, as well as the verbal, mental and sometimes physical abuse that she experienced. John (Chris’s dad) told us about his experiences as the parent of someone with a gambling addiction, how his life and that of his wife and family had been turned upside down and his role now supporting Chris in his recovery journey, including helping Chris keep tight control of his money.  

These real-life experiences really resonated with workshop participants – even if they had no experience of gambling harms. Our rich discussion touched on many issues including the links between ADHD and impulse behaviours such as gambling; the fact that there is no single reason for gambling problems; and the normalisation of gambling-like behaviours in online games that are so popular among children and young people, through features like microtransactions and loot boxes that are played to get an edge. John reminded us that 55,000 young people aged 11-16 in Britain are categorised as ‘problem’ gamblers – a term which stigmatises those suffering from this illness – with a further 85,000 young people estimated to be at risk of harm from gambling. 

How FinTechs can help reduce harms from gambling 

There is no perfect solution to help someone control their gambling. Blocks, self-exclusion schemes and other features can all be circumvented if gambling has become the most important activity in someone’s life and dominates their thinking, feelings, and behaviour. Nonetheless, the workshop highlighted a whole range of things that FinTechs are already doing as well as challenges still to be solved, such as joint accounts that give more control and protection. It also illustrated the invaluable contribution that experts-by-experience like Gambling Harm UK can bring to the table in terms of product ideation, design, and testing.  

Data-driven early intervention: Starling Bank described how it had a specialist team that proactively contacted loan customers to offer help where their underwriting team identified potential harm from gambling (or where they were in other potentially vulnerable situations), including links to external sources of support. It accepted that the message won’t always land well with customers but in its experience, there was more positive than negative feedback from customers. Saying the right things, in the right way is key, which Chris, Julie and Julie all confirmed was so important, means testing the language and training staff. Indicators of potentially harmful gambling might include applying for large loans late at night and multiple gambling transactions across several sites in a very short space of time.  

Enhanced friction and control features: At a time when it is quicker and easier than ever to set up a new bank account or take out a sizable loan, there is significant potential to give customers more control over their spending from the get-go. This might be a bank account where you have to opt-in to be able to gamble rather than opting out; or a non-gambling banking app with enhanced transaction monitoring. Through its personal financial management features, Moneyhub enables its users to set up spending flags across multiple accounts, making it easier for people to see what they are spending on different expenditure categories (such as gambling) where they may want to exercise more control and set spend limits. As Chris attested from his personal experience, tools to help people set up, and stick to, a budget can be an invaluable part of someone’s recovery from gambling addiction, ideally with a human element as well.  

Joint accounts: As an affected other, Julie highlighted the problems that resulted from having a joint account with her then-husband. He took her earnings and their savings from the joint account to gamble leaving her in dire financial straits, but Julie was unable to close the account without his permission. While joint accounts nowadays offer both parties easier visibility of the account data, for example via banking apps, in practice there may not be equal access or control if one partner is the victim of coercive control or financial abuse. Other research has highlighted the potential for a safer joint account using Open Banking payment initiation, but while the technology exists to build such a product, it is not yet available.  

Help to rebuild finances in recovery: John wanted to see financial services do more to support people with gambling problems to achieve sustainable recovery, by helping them rebuild their finances and their credit rating. Partly this is about raising awareness among FinTechs and other financial firms that gambling addiction is an impulse control disorder; and that people in recovery may be returning to a life they need help to cope with. 

In practical terms, it is about helping people build their finances so they can rebuild their lives, for example offering lower interest rates to people who have shown they can stick to a loan repayment schedule; allowing people to pay back debt over longer periods without penalising them; providing money management features such as ‘account sweeping’ to help repay debt or to start saving.  

Make gambling harms a normal thing to talk about: making it normal for us to talk about gambling harms and their potentially devastating impacts makes a lot of sense, given that millions of people in the UK are affected – not just the person who gambles but those around them as well. And taking the conversation to FinTechs and other financial services firms has the potential to stimulate even greater innovation for good.  

“Thank you so much for speaking to us in Bristol today. You really brought home how important it is for financial service providers to engage and to think bigger and better about how we can prevent and reduce harm and aid recovery. And for me most importantly, some immediately actionable insights which we can do something to address now in our own lending practices. Every step in the right direction, however, small, is very valuable in making change.” James Berry CEO, Great Western Credit Union. 

“Thank you for organising such a fascinating yet poignant discussion. Matthew Barr, John Dyer and I left energised planning how we at Moneyhub can do more to support those affected by gambling harm and how financial institutions can position themselves as a first line of defence to protect those who are vulnerable.” Jonathan Bell, Sales Director (Decisioning), Moneyhub. 

If you have been affected by any of the issues in this blog, you can contact the National Gambling Helpline which provides confidential advice, information and support by telephone and webchat free of charge.  

To find out more about the work of Gambling Harm UK, please contact John Gilham, CEO: john@gamharm.co.uk 

The economic impact of COVID in the UK depended on where you live

Posted on by david.collings
Shutterstock/3DJustincase

Julie MacLeavy, University of Bristol; David Manley, University of Bristol; Jamie Evans, University of Bristol, and Katie Cross, University of Bristol

COVID brought rapid and lasting economic change around the world. But in the UK, the level of impact depended on where you lived when the virus arrived.

Our research shows that the economic difficulties experienced during periods of social restrictions were particularly stark for those in deprived neighbourhoods.

During the first national lockdown, for example, we found that 23% of people in the most deprived parts of the UK were unable to afford day-to-day expenses or to save for the future. Food bank usage was reported at 9%. In the least deprived places, those figures were 6% and 0.5% respectively.

The impact on employment followed a similar pattern, with 10% of workers from the most deprived areas experiencing a job loss in the early months of the pandemic, compared with only 4% in the least deprived areas. Overall, the people who live in the UK’s most deprived neighbourhoods fell further behind through the pandemic.

This corresponds with previous data that lays bare how being poor limits a person’s ability to cope with – and recover from – abrupt changes in economic conditions. Mostly, this stems from a lack of capacity to soak up financial shocks (having savings, for example) and from the nature of state welfare provision.

With COVID, the sudden restrictions placed on the labour market, alongside an absence of childcare, placed many in uncharted waters. Among them, single-parent households were much more likely to have experienced job loss or a reduction in working hours.

A report by the independent Women’s Budget Group found that the socio-economic effects of COVID were particularly severe for women with disabilities, women from minority ethnic groups, and women of migrant status. Again, this underlines how the pandemic exposed and amplified existing vulnerabilities.

In terms of emergency support, the temporary universal credit increase (which provided an additional £20 a week to the standard allowance) helped to reduce overall inequality. And the furlough scheme (plus similar support for the self-employed) reached many in potential difficulty – but not all.

Brought in to prevent potential mass unemployment and pay workers a replacement wage, these policies excluded many in the most precarious positions, including an estimated three million on zero-hour contracts, agency workers and the newly self-employed.

But those eligible for employment support were not immune from difficulty. About one-third of the 11.2 million workers furloughed saw their income fall below the official low-pay threshold. A further 6% ended up behind with their bills as a result of large income falls, high expenses and low savings.

Filling the gaps in state support were family, friends and community groups, many of which were set up in direct response to the pandemic. Informal transfers of money from these sources were common for those on the lowest incomes, regardless of where they lived.

Continued risk

This highlights a failure of state support to fully mitigate the effects of COVID restrictions for those facing financial, food and housing insecurity. Despite the government spending over £70 billion on emergency financial assistance, a combination of insufficient payments and problems of access left many reliant on informal forms of support. In addition, there is evidence that the stigma surrounding benefits put a lot of people off applying for help, even when they really needed it.

Our analysis found that working-age adults were more likely to have received financial support from family or friends (8%) than apply for universal credit (4%). We also found that this kind of reliance was more likely among those who had been furloughed than those who had continued working through the pandemic, and even more widespread for those who had lost their job, suggesting that the furlough scheme, while not perfect, was better than mass job losses.

High street without shoppers.
Empty streets in April 2020.
Shutterstock/Kristin Greenwood

Today, while the worst effects of COVID seem to be behind us, the risks of job losses, business failures and debt defaults remain. In the UK, recession is expected, inflation is high, and energy bills are soaring. Of particular concern are those for whom the pandemic has increased their financial vulnerability. They are not well placed to weather this coming crisis.

Rather than scale back state financial support, the government needs to ensure the poorest and most vulnerable are protected. In doing so, they would guard against the scarring effects of unemployment and debt.

There is also a role for targeted regional investment. The financial impacts of the pandemic were most keenly experienced by those in places with long histories of deeply entrenched disadvantage. Without help, the hardship and insecurity wrought by the pandemic risks becoming ingrained, and with it, the geographical concentration of poverty that our analysis has uncovered.The Conversation

Julie MacLeavy, Professor of Economic Geography, University of Bristol; David Manley, Professor of Human Geography, University of Bristol; Jamie Evans, Senior Research Associate, University of Bristol, and Katie Cross, Senior Research Associate, University of Bristol

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

MaPS recommissioning of debt advice services: will it meet the needs of clients in vulnerable situations?

Posted on by jamie.evans

By Jamie Evans

In recent weeks, debate has been raging about the provision of face-to-face debt advice services in England. Over 1,700 people – many of whom are frontline debt advisers – have signed a petition calling for ‘an immediate pause to the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) recommissioning of debt advice’, which the authors of the petition, the Unite Debt Advice Network, argue ‘is likely to result in cuts to funding for debt advice of up to 50%, with face-to-face debt advice particularly affected’.

MaPS, on the other hand, believes that its recommissioning exercise ‘will increase the amount of debt advice available to people in England’ and will ‘ensure services are built around customers’ needs’. It says that it has not commissioned based on channel, instead asking debt advice providers to suggest how best to meet the needs of clients using a range of different channels (including but not limited to telephony, face-to-face, virtual appointments, and webchat). In a recent meeting with We Are Debt Advisers (a network of 500 frontline debt advisers), Caroline Siarkiewicz (MaPS Chief Executive) intimated that face-to-face advice would receive 20% of the total funding allocation. We Are Debt Advisers estimates that this would be equivalent to a 16% cut in funding for face-to-face advice services.

The issue has attracted national attention, leading to a Westminster Hall debate on 1st December. A number of MPs advocated passionately for protecting face-to-face services, with Emma Hardy (MP for Kingston Upon Hull West and Hessle) arguing that ‘face-to-face advice is the only way of supporting a significant proportion of people in debt, and… a reduction in capacity and coverage will fail some of the most vulnerable in our society.’

Advisers know channel matters a lot for vulnerable clients

It certainly shouldn’t be controversial to say that different people have different needs when seeking support – whether with debt problems or any other issue they face. This means that some people will prefer digital methods of communication, others will prefer (or only be able to access) more traditional methods, and some might be perfectly happy with a combination of both.

This is something that debt advisers are well aware of.

In 2018, the Personal Finance Research Centre received grant funding from the then Money Advice Service to conduct research on debt advisers’ experiences of working with and supporting clients in vulnerable situations – including mental health problems, addictions and a range of other situations. We surveyed more than 1,500 advisers and, as part of the research, we asked if there were particular groups of clients who might be affected (negatively or positively) by a shift to digital debt advice services. What advisers told us is summarised below:

Potential impacts of digital debt advice on vulnerable client groups, according to debt advisers we surveyed (read the research here)

The results demonstrate widespread concern among frontline debt advisers about the potential impact on vulnerable clients of a shift to digital methods of debt advice. They highlighted a range of practical issues that their clients might face in accessing digital debt advice:

“Many of the people I see can’t maintain the same phone number because they can’t afford ongoing phone contracts.”

“Vulnerable clients benefit from building up a relationship with the advisor to be able to trust them enough act on the advice – which they could never get via digital delivery.”

“Clients who can’t afford to eat can’t afford internet… or [can’t afford the] fares to get to free internet.”

“[Face-to-face] we are better able to gauge their needs and abilities, e.g. via email a client can agree to carry out an action but face-to-face we can see that this causes them distress so we can support them to do it.”

Advisers reported that clients with mental health problems, cognitive impairments or learning disabilities may need information explained several times or in different ways. Advisers also highlighted the considerable challenges that clients can face in gathering or understanding paperwork, which are often dealt with quickest in-person.

The scale of vulnerability in debt advice

There are almost always pros and cons to the introduction of new technologies, as we see in long-running debates on issues like access to cash and bank branch closures. Debt advice faces many of the same fundamental questions – but a big difference is the scale of vulnerability encountered by debt advisers.

Based on our survey, we estimate that just under a third of the clients supported by advisers remotely (i.e. telephony or webchat) had disclosed a mental health problem. This rises to half of clients supported by face-to-face advice. In the Westminster Hall debate it was reported that this may rise to as much as 82% for some advisers.

Of course, not all mental health problems are necessarily incompatible with digital advice delivery. Indeed, many people with conditions like social anxiety might be unable to access advice in-person or over the phone, so methods such as webchat offer a hugely important lifeline (see, for example, research from the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute).

Getting the balance right

Getting the balance right requires a comprehensive understanding of demand for debt advice via different channels (including how well demand is actually being met at the moment). This is no easy feat, particularly when we have insufficient data on what the whole debt advice sector actually looks like. Investment to build this data would greatly improve MaPS’ ability to forecast accurately and might improve their chances of obtaining a more representative sample when consulting with advisers from different parts of the sector. It is also important to ensure research on these topics properly involves those who are digitally excluded. This is something we can all improve on.

In the meantime, it would be good to see the evidence on which decisions are currently based. MaPS is yet to publish its formal Equalities and Vulnerability Impact Assessment, so this seems a good place to start.

There are elements of MaPS’ proposals which are (hopefully) welcome from the perspective of vulnerable clients. Caroline Siarkiewicz describes how MaPS hope the new funding approach will get advisers off the ‘hamster wheel’ of dealing with one client after another, leading to more time spent with individual clients rather than simply chasing high volumes.

Whatever happens, it is clear that at present many advisers are suffering poor wellbeing due to their workload – a recent IMA survey found that 68% of those working for MaPS-funded advice organisations were dissatisfied with their workload, with two-in-five (41%) reporting that they ‘often feel stressed and anxious at work’. Many are uncertain about their future and are tired of repeating the same things over and over again, both in relation to debt advice and in terms of wider social policy. They are the experts in this arena, so decision-makers need to start listening.

Read the research here: Vulnerability: the experience of debt advisers

‘Zealous and unsympathetic’: are Government debt collection practices outdated?

Posted on by david.collings

By Jamie Evans

In what many will consider a somewhat worrying sign of the times, in the UK, job adverts for debt collectors surged in August. This comes after news that during and following lockdown, households receiving financial support from the Government were increasingly likely to have missed debt repayments or fallen behind on household bills.

Where the UK’s economy heads next is something that will cause concern for many of us. Financial difficulty and, in particular, debt can be a major source of stress and poor mental health – and can also impact on numerous other aspects of our lives, including our relationships and productivity at work.

But, while debt itself can be problematic, the actions of creditors when collecting money owed to them are just as – if not more – important. Where good debt collection practices will hopefully help the debtor find a route out of difficulty, poor practices will simply make problems worse.

Government debt collection practices ‘worst in class’

As I outlined in a new briefing paper for the House of Commons Library, the debt collection practices of central and local public sector bodies have increasingly been called into question in recent years. There are reported to be as many as 500 different public bodies that an individual might owe money to, including the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), the NHS, and local authorities.

In 2019/20, public sector bodies were owed an estimated £16 billion across several types of debt – including benefit overpayments, council tax arrears, benefit advances, criminal court financial impositions, and rent arrears on local authority housing. The total value of all debt owed to the public sector, however, is not currently measured.

While commercial lenders and debt collectors have begun to improve debt collection practices in recent years – mainly as a result of regulatory action from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) –government bodies have been heavily criticised for not following suit.

Debt advice charities, including Citizens Advice, StepChange and the Money Advice Trust, have all called on the Government to improve practices – and their calls have been echoed more recently by the Centre for Social Justice and a growing number of MPs and Peers. In 2018, the Treasury Select Committee concluded that public bodies are “often found to be the most zealous and unsympathetic of creditors in collecting arrears” and more recently former Conservative MP Nicky Morgan (now Baroness of Cotes) wrote the following:

“Regrettably, the public sector continues to lag behind. Despite glimmers of progress, the Committee’s verdict in 2018 that the public sector was ‘worst in class’ for debt collection remains sadly accurate.”

Aggressive practices causing downstream problems

Criticisms of the public sector’s approach to debt collection have focused on their perceived heavy-handed nature, with a reliance on enforcement agents (bailiffs), rapid escalation of debts (including the use of imprisonment for non-payment of council tax debt), and increasingly aggressive practices as the financial year-end approaches.

Overall, it is argued that a short-term incentive to collect money owed as fast as possible may come at the cost of longer-term sustainability and may in fact lead to a lower likelihood of all money being recovered or of individuals being able to escape the cycle of problem debt.

These issues are exemplified by the BBC’s docudrama ‘Killed by my debt’, which tells the real-life story of 19-year old courier Jerome Rogers who found himself in debt to Camden Council as a result of two minor traffic violations. In 2016, after the two initial £65 fines he received spiralled to a £1,000 debt and bailiffs clamped his motorbike – his primary means of making a living – Jerome sadly took his own life.

Jerome’s case raised awareness of the issues associated with debt collection and prompted Camden Council (and others) to introduce formal policies related to the treatment of vulnerable debtors. Nevertheless, according to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests made by the Money Advice Trust, in 2018-19, English and Welsh local authorities used bailiffs 1.1 million times to collect council tax debts and 780,000 times for parking debts.

Important geographical differences

The aforementioned FOI requests also highlight the variation in practices across the country, with bailiff use increasing in some areas but not in others and some local authorities adopting ‘good practice’ measures (such as policies for supporting vulnerable individuals). The Money Advice Trust have mapped these practices across England and Wales, as shown below.

Differences also exist between the constituent nations of the UK. England, for example, remains the only country in UK (and, more widely, in Europe) to imprison people for non-payment of council tax. Wales abolished this practice from April 2019, with Mark Drakeford describing the sanction of imprisonment as ‘an outdated and disproportionate response to a civil debt issue’. Scotland and Northern Ireland also have very different rules around the enforcement of debts more generally.

Recommendations for change

While the Government has already made some changes in this area, including reforms to the bailiff industry in 2014, it recognises that more can be done. In June 2020 the Cabinet Office published a consultation on fairness in Government debt management.

Campaigners argue that the Government needs go much further. In particular, there have been calls for independent bailiff regulation and an end to the practice of imprisonment for non-payment of council tax, as England is the only remaining country in Europe to continue using this type of enforcement. Campaigners also want to end rules which make individuals liable for an entire year’s council tax payments after just one missed instalment, as this fails to offer those having repayment difficulties a route out of debt.

Additionally, a group of 55 cross-party peers and MPs have written a letter to support the idea of a ‘Government Debt Management Bill’. This would place current codes of practice on a statutory footing and more generally ensure consistency across public bodies (and across the country) in the way that they calculate repayment affordability and treat those in vulnerable situations.

With the impact of the pandemic potentially leading to an increase in those facing financial difficulties, such calls for change are only likely to grow louder.

About the Author: Jamie Evans is a Senior Research Associate at the Personal Finance Research Centre, within Bristol’s School of Geographical Sciences. He is currently on a part-time Parliamentary Academic Fellowship at the House of Commons Library within the Business and Transport team. For more information on these fellowships, please visit UK Parliament’s website.

Suggested further reading

Evans, J. (2020) Debts to public bodies: are Government debt collection practices outdated?. House of Commons Library briefing paper number 9007. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9007/

Evans, J., Fitch, C., Collard, S., & Henderson, C. (2018)  Mental health and debt collection: a story of progress? Exploring changes in debt collectors’ attitudes and practices when working with customers with mental health problems, 2010–2016. Journal of Mental Health, 27(6): 496-503. https://doi.org/10.1080/09638237.2018.1466040

Anderson, B, Langley, P, Ash, J, Gordon, R. (2020). Affective life and cultural economy: Payday loans and the everyday space‐times of credit‐debt in the UK. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. 45: 420– 433. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12355

García‐Lamarca, M. and Kaika, M. (2016), ‘Mortgaged lives’: the biopolitics of debt and housing financialisation. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 41: 313-327. doi:10.1111/tran.12126

Introducing Katie Cross, PFRC’s new Research Associate

Posted on by david.collings
Katie Cross

By Katie Cross

When I applied for a job at the University of Bristol’s Personal Finance Research Centre (PFRC) three months ago, I never expected my first week would be spent working from the comfort of my own home. No commute, no struggling to navigate my way around campus and no face-to-face introductions with colleagues. Instead I find myself writing this blog as a way of introducing myself to everyone at the University and to those within the wider research community.

So hello, I am Katie the new Research Associate at the PFRC. My background is in quantitative, policy-focused research, most recently working for the Association of Convenience Stores, a trade association that lobbies government on behalf of small shops. The best thing about working in an applied social research setting is that your research can have a direct impact; the intention is that the findings you produce will be used to inform and drive change. This was just one of the reasons I was drawn to working for the PFRC.

Moving into personal finance and being able to work at the University is an extremely exciting opportunity, which will bring with it a whole host of new experiences. But researching small shops has more in common with personal finance than you might think.

Access to cash

Firstly, during my time at ACS I saw how many people were dependent on the financial services that local shops offer, including post offices, cash machines and bill payment terminals. From a business perspective it is important that offering these services remains viable, as retailers can end up operating them at a loss, replacing ATMs with pay-to-use models or removing them all together. From a personal finance perspective, the removal of these services can be detrimental, especially to the most vulnerable. Almost half of the UK population (47%) believe it would be personally problematic if there was no cash in society and 17% (over 8 million adults) would struggle to cope without it. These figures were reported prior to the coronavirus outbreak, which will only have brought this into the spotlight even further. With hygiene concerns around the use of cash, an increase in the contactless card payment limit and more shops only accepting card, it is now even more important that we do not leave those who rely on cash behind. This makes the work that the PFRC and Dr Daniel Tischer are doing with the Financial Conduct Authority, Payment Systems Regulator and various industry stakeholders on mapping access to cash across the country even more valuable.

Helping people in vulnerable situations

Secondly, helping people in vulnerable situations is a top priority for the PFRC, and the same is often true of local shops. I was always impressed by how much local shops do for their communities, whether this is through delivery services for the elderly, training staff to become dementia friends, or just being there for people who don’t have anyone else to talk to. This has become more apparent during this unprecedented period, with shops going even further to get vulnerable customers the help they need. With Coronavirus pushing many more into vulnerable situations, this is now more important than ever. If the virus has taught us anything, it is that our lives and personal circumstances can change quickly, and sometimes with very little warning.

It is with that in mind that I start my new role.

I am really looking forward to working within the area of personal finance, especially at a time of such great economic uncertainty when we need this research more than ever. I can’t wait to use my past experience and research abilities to help inform all areas of personal finance and help drive change for those who need it.

Mind the (data) gap: we need national statistics on people’s banking experiences

Posted on by david.collings

By Sharon Collard

Since lockdown, millions of UK adults are reported to have switched to mobile banking as banks close branches or restrict their opening hours and struggle to cope with high call volumes. However, we seriously lack data on how people are coping with banking – both offline and online. From a policy and advocacy perspective, these important data gaps need urgent attention, especially as the UK’s ‘new normal’ will almost certainly mean ‘online’.

The UK has pretty good data on people’s internet access and – by extension – their capacity to bank online. This also tells us who the banks are leaving behind in their digital transformation programmes, which have been given an extra boost by COVID-19.

According to Ofcom, while 90% of the UK adult population used the internet in 2018, this falls to 67% among people with a disability. The gap in smartphone use is even bigger, with 78% of UK adults saying they personally use a smartphone compared with just 45% of adults with a disability.

ONS data shows that women and people aged 65+ are also less likely to use the internet. And, while 69% of adults bank online (rising to a whopping 93% of 25-34 year olds), this falls to 47% of 65-74 year olds and 23% of 75-79 year olds – although there are reports of growing numbers of older people registering for online banking since lockdown.

The two most common reasons people gave (pre-COVID) for not using the internet were lack of interest and lack of digital skills. Lloyds Bank estimates that nine million people are unable to use the internet or their devices without assistance; and 6.5 million cannot open apps (which presumably includes banking apps). CapGemini highlights cost as an important reason for ‘digital disconnection’ among young people.

This begs the question: how are non-internet users and others who find digital difficult – including consumers in vulnerable situations who physically can’t get to a bank – coping with banking in lockdown? Despite interesting innovation, the worry is that people resort to risky workarounds like sharing their PIN number or bank cards, exposing them to the threat of financial abuse.

There is some excellent ‘lived experience’ data as well as a whole range of new COVID-19 studies looking at its impact on every aspect of people’s lives – including the financial impact. However, none of these seems to shed much light on how people are coping with ‘offline banking’.

It is also hard to find any publicly available data on people’s experience of online banking. The most recent waves of the Financial Capability Survey of UK Adults and Financial Lives Survey (both fantastic data sources) don’t cover online banking in any detail – although future waves may do – and they are biennial. In the meantime, while banks have their own data and can pay for other data, these data are not freely or publicly available.

From a policy and advocacy perspective, these data gaps need urgent attention, especially as the UK’s ‘new normal’ will almost certainly mean ‘online’.

Lessons learnt so far on spending controls for gambling transactions: an update from the MAGPIE research study

Posted on by david.collings

By Jamie Evans and Sharon Collard

Yesterday’s move by the Gambling Commission to ban gambling using credit cards is a welcome public health intervention and one that now shifts the focus onto other ways for people to control their gambling spend. ‘Spending controls’, offered by a growing number of banks, provide one such solution, giving customers the option to block gambling transactions from their accounts. But how can banks maximise the effectiveness of such controls? In this blog, we provide an update from our strategic partnership with GambleAware, which aims to answer this and other questions about the potential role of financial services firms in reducing gambling-related harm.

In September 2019, we officially launched ‘Money and Gambling: Practice, Insight, Evidence (MAGPIE)’ – a three-year programme between the University of Bristol’s Personal Finance Research Centre (PFRC) and GambleAware, a charity who fund research, prevention and treatment into the harms of gambling. The programme is designed to explore and improve the way that financial firms tackle gambling-related harm.

Since then, we have been busy working on the first of several projects within the programme. This considers how ‘spending controls’ – otherwise known as ‘gambling blocks’ – that are available on a growing number of debit and credit cards can be as effective as possible in reducing gambling-related harm. To do this, we have conducted expert interviews with banks and other key stakeholders; consulted people affected by gambling through Advisory Boards and interviews; and reviewed academic and other literature on this topic.

We are also working with banks that have launched spending controls to understand patterns in customer data and are running an online survey of people affected by gambling to find out more about their views and experiences of spending controls. Collectively, we hope the new data collected from these different sources will help improve the industry’s understanding of what does and doesn’t work when it comes to spending controls.

So what spending controls currently exist?

Customers of several UK financial services firms now have access to gambling blocks on their accounts (as shown in the below diagram) – and we know of at least one other firm that offers a similar service on request if you telephone them. Blocks on credit card transactions should, in theory, be unnecessary once the wider ban on gambling with credit cards is introduced in April 2020.

The diagram shows that gambling blocks differ in terms of their ‘cooling off’ period (i.e. the length of time after choosing to turn off a gambling block that someone would have to wait until they can gamble again on their account). Some currently offer no cooling-off period, which means that a customer could use the card to gamble as soon as they turn off the block. CashPlus and HSBC both have a 24 hour cooling off period; while Lloyds Banking Group (including Lloyds Bank, Halifax, Bank of Scotland and MBNA) and Monzo require customers to wait 48 hours before they can gamble again.

This cooling-off period is generally recognised, by banks and treatment providers, as a crucial component of an effective gambling block – especially for customers engaged in more high-risk gambling behaviours. As such, we are very likely to see more firms incorporating this kind of ‘friction’ into their spending controls in the near future.

More than the ‘cooling-off’ period…

While obviously important, our work recognises that an effective gambling block is about more than just its cooling-off period. Friction can come in many forms and there are some really interesting ideas on the horizon about the shape that these could take.

There are also a range of other fascinating, albeit challenging, questions that we need to answer. For example, we need to understand more about the customer’s engagement with staff if and when they try to turn off the block, or what happens if they try to gamble when the block is turned on. How are gambling blocks being communicated to customers, and how do financial services firms reach the right people? Who even are the ‘right people’?! It might be the case that a whole spectrum of products and services should be made available to customers engaging in a wide range of gambling behaviours, including those who might not be engaged in risky gambling behaviours right now but may do so in future.

And there are questions that may stretch beyond the usual remit of the financial services sector. How, for example, might unscrupulous gambling operators try to circumvent such spending controls, and – crucially – what can we do about this?

Lessons from the literature

There exists a rich body of academic literature about gambling and ways to reduce gambling-related harm.  To bring this literature to a wider audience – including financial services firms – we have published a Roadmap which sets out the rationale for our programme and summarises some of the existing evidence that is relevant to spending controls. It highlights, for example, the importance of viewing spending controls as one tool in a wider harm minimisation toolkit, as well as the importance of considering the other people affected by gambling (such as partners, families, friends) and the help and support they might require from financial services firms.

You can read this roadmap document here and sign-up for updates about the programme here.

This article was originally posted on the MAGPIE blog. Read the original article here.

Gamble Aware announce new partnership with University of Bristol to explore potential role of financial services firms in reducing gambling-related harm

Posted on by david.collings

The University of Bristol’s Personal Finance Research Centre (PFRC) is today pleased to announce the launch of Money and Gambling: Practice, Insight, Evidence (MAGPIE), a new three-year strategic programme, in partnership with Gamble Aware, which looks at the role that financial services organisations can play in reducing gambling-related harm.

Gambling problems can destroy lives, often leaving those affected to live with severe financial and social consequences. Indeed, around seven in ten people seeking help for gambling problems report that they are in debt, with a third of these owing £10,000 or more. Between 2007 and 2014 there were an average of 500 bankruptcies per year known to be linked to gambling – the true figure, however, may be much higher because people may not disclose that their bankruptcy is related to gambling.[1]

While many people do enjoy gambling safely, the number of people who are ‘problem gamblers’ or who suffer negative consequences as a result of their gambling is far from insignificant. It is estimated that in 2016 nearly a million adults in Britain experienced sizeable negative consequences as a result of their gambling, with around 360,000 adults classified as ‘problem gamblers’ (Gambling Commission, 2019).

Betting on the banks?

Money and gambling are clearly intricately linked, with ‘gambling more than you can afford’ one of the key indicators of a gambling problem. As such, it makes sense that organisations that help us look after our money – the world of ‘financial services’ – might also be able to take actions to help those at-risk of gambling-related harm.

Such firms are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which in recent years has upped its focus on the way that companies treat customers in vulnerable situations – including those living with gambling problems. As a result, firms are paying increased attention to the way that they identify and support such customers.

Indeed, in 2016, PFRC conducted research with over 1,500 frontline debt collection staff working in a wide range of financial services firms, including high-street banks, lenders and debt collection agencies. This research focused on staff members’ experiences of working with customers in vulnerable situations, including those with mental health problems, suicidal thoughts and addictions, and highlighted some of the challenges that they face – whether in identifying ‘vulnerability’, starting a conversation about it, or providing customers with adequate support or sign-posting to other sources of support.

Following that research, we held a number of ‘problem-solving workshops’ with firms, charities and those with lived experience of different vulnerable situations to develop new tools and guidance for debt collection staff when working with such customers. Many of the solutions developed have now been adopted (or, in some cases, even adapted) by firms – highlighting the fact that there is considerable appetite among those working in financial services to do what they can to help such customers.

When the funds stop, stop?

Last year saw the introduction of spending controls or ‘gambling blocks’ by several UK banks – most notably Barclays, Monzo and Starling. Once turned on by customers, these essentially prevent spending on a bank card at gambling outlets (both online or in-person).

We know that people in recovery from problem gambling already use informal workarounds to prevent themselves from spending money on gambling, such as forfeiting their card to a third party or scratching off the card security number. The new solutions from banks, however, allow customers to do this more formally – and, possibly, more successfully.

But at present there is limited evidence about the effectiveness of such spending controls, nor about the characteristics of those who use them. We also don’t know much about the unintended consequences of these spending blockers (for example, whether it leads to customers withdrawing more money as cash and gambling with that).

As such, the first six months of our programme will focus on answering these questions and building the evidence-base around what works for recovering gamblers. We will use this evidence to produce practical guidance for financial services firms around the design of spending blockers.

Get involved in the research

In order to build the evidence-base, we’ll be working closely throughout the project with financial services firms – but, more importantly, our research will place those with lived experience of problem gambling at the centre of the project, as well as those with expertise in the treatment of recovering gamblers.

So, if you’re interested in being part of the research or if you simply want to be kept updated, you can join our money and gambling network by filling out this short form.

Notes:

GambleAware is an independent charity that champions a public health approach to preventing gambling harms. The charity is a commissioner of integrated prevention, education and treatment services on a national scale, with over £40 million of grant funding under active management. In partnership with gambling treatment providers, GambleAware has spent several years methodically building structures for commissioning a coherent system of brief intervention and treatment services, with clearly defined care pathways and established referral routes to and from the NHS – a National Gambling Treatment Service. Follow GambleAware on Twitter: @GambleAware

GambleAware also runs the website BeGambleAware.org which helps 4.2 million visitors a year and signposts to a wide range of support services. Follow BeGambleAware on Twitter: @BeGambleAware

[1] See RGSB (2015) Understanding gambling-related harm and debt. Available at: https://www.rgsb.org.uk/PDF/Understanding-gambling-related-harm-and-debt-July-2015.pdf

This article was originally posted on the MAGPIE blog. Read the original article here.

Responding to citizens in debt to public services

Posted on by david.collings

Early intervention is key to stopping Welsh households from falling behind on their council tax or social housing rent payments, according to a new report from the Wales Centre for Public Policy. In 2018, the First Minister asked the WCPP to explore the evidence around the question ‘How might public services and their contracted partners in Wales better respond to vulnerable debtors, especially those subject to prosecution and prison?’

The report – which was co-authored by Professor Sharon Collard of PFRC, and Helen Hodges and Paul Worthington of WCPP – focuses on council tax debt and rent arrears to local authorities and social landlords as key forms of citizen debt to Welsh public services and their contracted partners.

As councils across Wales are seeking large increases in their council tax rates for the coming year, the report highlights the importance of building personalised and proactive support for vulnerable citizens, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.

Key features of an effective support system would include:

  • Building trust with citizens right when they start being responsible for paying council tax or social rents
  • Identifying any problems and acting on them as early as possible
  • Easing the process of referring people in debt into partner services, and improved access to independent specialist help

But the report also warns that the ability for councils and housing associations to respond to future increases in demand, particularly in relation to any roll-out of Universal Credit, could be hampered because of increased workload pressures.

67,600 (5.2%) of households in Wales have problem debt according to the ONS, with a greater number of them in arrears for their council tax or social housing rents than in previous years.

Read more about this research

Responding to citizens in debt to public services – a rapid evidence review (PDF)

Voices from the frontline of debt advice – new research on supporting clients in vulnerable situations

Posted on by david.collings

by Sharon Collard and Jamie Evans

In this post, we explore key findings from our new research, which looks at the experiences of nearly 1,600 debt advisers when supporting people in vulnerable situations.

At the recent Talk Money conference, we launched new research, in partnership with the Money Advice Trust and the Money and Mental Health policy Institute, looking at debt advisers’ experiences of working with clients in a range of different situations that might make them ‘vulnerable’.

The research was based on a UK-wide survey of 1,573 debt advisers working in approximately 400 organisations and included new data from a survey of nearly 400 individuals with lived experience of mental health problems and debt.

The report, Vulnerability: the experience of advisers, brings together these new findings along with good practice guidance for supporting those in vulnerable situations.

So, what does the report actually tell us?

1. Vulnerability is an everyday occurrence for advisers

Firstly, it’s apparent that advisers across the sector are dealing with clients in very vulnerable situations on a regular basis.

Of the 87 clients that a typical full-time adviser deals with in a working month, they can expect 35 to disclose a mental health problem. A further seven clients tell them about an addiction of some sort, be it a gambling problem, alcohol problem or other substance addiction.

Each week, nearly two-thirds of advisers encounter at least one client with a serious physical illness or disability, over a third see someone with a learning disability and one-in-five help a client who is, or has been, in an abusive relationship.

Lastly, in the last 12 months, nearly three-quarters of advisers encountered at least one client who disclosed suicidal thoughts, and over half seriously believed that at least one client was at genuine risk of suicide.

2. Levels of vulnerability may have increased in recent years

As this is the first time that levels of vulnerability have been measured across the whole advice sector, it is hard to say precisely how things have changed over time.

However, there is certainly anecdotal evidence from the advisers we surveyed that they are seeing more people in more challenging situations than ever before – with the risk that financial vulnerability exacerbates other types of vulnerability and vice versa.

3. This may just be the tip of the iceberg

For the purpose of consistent measurement, we asked advisers in the survey to tell us about those clients who disclosed their situation, rather than all clients that they believed to be in such a situation. This means that our statistics could represent just the ‘tip of the iceberg’.

Indeed, in our survey of advice clients with mental health problems, we found that as many as 44% of people with mental health problems may not disclose their condition when dealing with a debt adviser.

This could equally apply to a range of other situations, such as domestic abuse and addictions. Clients will not tell advisers everything just because they are there to help them and understanding the reasons for under disclosure is important.

4. More support is needed to help advisers deal with these situations

The primary goal of debt advisers is, of course, to help people resolve their debt and money problems; however, in many cases these financial issues cannot be resolved without considering the underlying situation.

Our data shows that more could be done here. For example, at present, 44% of advisers have not received any training on supporting clients with addictions and 56% have not received training in relation to gambling.

Such training though is on the way via the Trust’s Wiseradviser programme which is launching addictions and suicide prevention courses in the New Year.

It is also apparent that many people in vulnerable situations find it challenging to go through the debt advice process. For example, of those we surveyed with mental health problems, 48% reported that making initial contact with the advice agency was difficult, while 56% encountered difficulty in finding the information advisers needed from them.

The guidance and practical tools in our report can help advisers consider some of these issues.

5. But changes to debt advice alone are not enough

Our research also looked at the wider issues that affect advisers’ ability to support those in vulnerable situations. This highlighted the fact that many advisers felt they are working in an environment which makes it difficult for them to provide the very best support for their clients.

It takes time, money and resources to provide the right support, and in many cases advisers felt these are severely constrained. Advisers also noted that there are often situations where clients could benefit from the support of external services, but these simply do not exist locally or are already over-stretched.

While these bigger issues require co-ordination and collaboration from the advice sector and beyond, we hope our research and guidance give frontline advisers and advice organisations some useful additional tools and resources to support their invaluable work with clients in vulnerable situations.

Vulnerability: the experience of debt advisers was funded by the Money Advice Service. The report is available to download here, where you can also find data tables and a resource pack with additional tools to help advisers support those in vulnerable situations.

Further information about Wiseradviser training is available here: www.wiseradviser.org.

This article was originally published as part of the Money Advice Trust’s Thoughts at the Trust blog series. Read the original article here.