Overview

This research explores victim-survivors’ experiences of financial services and products. In particular, it focuses on the experiences of minoritised victim-survivors in line with the intersectional economic abuse principle.

It was important that victim-survivors could share their experiences as fully as possible. Therefore, throughout the data collection, ‘financial services and products’ was deliberately interpreted broadly. This means that there is more information for some types of products (such as joint accounts or loans) than there is for other types of products (such as insurance). However, the findings relate to a broad range of products and services.

This research explores the following questions and sub-questions about victim-survivors’ experiences of financial services firms (and the experiences of the professionals who support them):

• Do responses from financial services firms meet existing rules and principles including the Consumer Duty, 2021 Financial Abuse Code and Economic Abuse Principles?

– Do financial services firms’ products and services meet the needs of victim-survivors? 
– Do victim-survivors receive a fair price and good value for the products they can access from financial services firms? 
– Do financial services firms show a good understanding of the needs of consumers who are victim-survivors of domestic including economic abuse? 
– Does the support offered by financial services firms to consumers meet the needs of victim-survivors?  
– Are responses from financial services firms survivor-centered, intersectional, safety-focused, coordinated, and collaborative? 

Recommendations for UK finance:

• To update the 2021 Financial Abuse Code so that it reflects firms’ obligations under the Consumer Duty and accompanying guidance. 
• To work alongside SEA to raise awareness amongst specialist domestic abuse services of the Financial Abuse Code and firms’ obligations under the Consumer Duty and accompanying guidance. 
This will empower specialist domestic abuse services to provide accurate information to victim survivors about the support they can receive from financial services.

Recommendations for financial services firms: 

• To ensure that victim-survivors receive a fair price and value when accessing products and services by acting flexibly so where possible, victim survivors are not charged or financially penalised for the abuser’s behaviour. This could include pausing repayments on coerced debt or waiving fees on products victim-survivors are only using because of the perpetrator’s abuse. • Ensure they understand their customers by conducting an intersectional analysis of victim survivors’ needs and implement this learning into their product design, service delivery, and colleague training. This should include implementing inclusive design principles and including survivors’ lived experience in product and service design and future reviews.  • Consult with victim-survivors, including those from a minoritised background, to ensure their products and services are survivor-centred, safe, and inclusive. This should include identifying and closing down opportunities for abusers to misuse products, for example, where possible by taking a safe and consistent approach to the separation of 
joint products.
• Ensure their consumer support offer meets the needs of all victim-survivors, including those with intersecting needs. This could include adopting the Economic Abuse Evidence Form so victim-survivors only have to tell their story once and offering translation and independent interpretation services to meet customers’ needs in 
their target market.
• Support consumer understanding of economic abuse by raising awareness of how to spot the signs and what support the firm can offer customers, in particular those from minoritised groups. This could include running customer awareness campaigns targeting under-served audiences, publicising their support offer on SEA’s Banking Support Directory, and introducing notification messages around economic abuse 
and “positive friction” at key points in the customer journey.
• Support continuous improvement by building colleagues’ skills and capabilities so they can recognise economic abuse and how to respond to victim-survivors, including those from minoritised backgrounds. This should include providing economic abuse training delivered by specialists to colleagues and promoting better coordination
by ensuring all colleagues know what support the firm can offer to customers and how to signpost to specialist domestic abuse services.
• Collaborate with Surviving Economic Abuse, UK Finance and credit reference agencies to establish an industry-wide approach to restoring victim-survivors’ credit files so they reflect their creditworthiness and not the abuser’s behaviour.

Recommendations for credit reference agencies:

• Collaborate with Surviving Economic Abuse, UK Finance and financial services firms to establish an industry-wide approach to restoring victim survivors’ credit scores so they reflect their creditworthiness and not the abuser’s behaviour.