Vulnerable Customers: Resources Hub
In 2016, the FLA and commissioned the University of Bristol’s Personal Finance Research Centre to undertake research into how firms approached the identification of and support for customers in vulnerable circumstances.
Vulnerability: A Guide for Debt Collection
Vulnerability: A Guide for Debt Collection was launched in 2017. This captures the experiences of 1600 frontline collections and specialist staff from 27 UK lenders, debt collection firms and debt purchasers.
The guide describes strategies to help staff deal with specific and often challenging vulnerabilities, such as serious or terminal illness, bereavement, addiction and mental health issues.
Vulnerability: A Guide for Lending
Vulnerability: A Guide for Lending focuses on supporting customers with a mental capacity or other limitations that may affect their decision-making abilities.
It contains the BRUCE protocol, which has been designed to help staff look for clues in a customer’s behaviour and speech which could indicate a problem with remembering, understanding, communicating or evaluating the credit options being discussed. The guide considers lending in different contexts and includes a section on assessing capacity in both intermediated and online environments.