Author Archives: admin

There has been much heat produced by political debate since the UK voted to leave the EU. But little light has been shed on the potential impact Brexit might have on vulnerable households in the UK. To address this gap, more »

The Financial Inclusion Centre responded to two important consultation papers which formed part of the FCA’s High Cost Credit Review. These covered overdrafts (CP18/13) and rent-to-own, home collected credit (doorstep lending), catalogue credit and store cards, and alternatives to high-cost more »

Today the Financial Inclusion Centre publishes a new report analysing the attitudes and behaviours of credit union members. To the best of our knowledge, this is the largest ever survey of credit union members, based on responses from over 12,500 users more »

The Financial Inclusion Centre has submitted its response to the FCA’s Approach to Competition paper. This is a very important paper as it sets out how the FCA intends to use competition interventions to meet its statutory objectives. We have more »

Two financial scandals have dominated the news over the past few days. Concerns have been raised for some time now about a major pensions misselling involving defined benefit pension scheme transfers. These concerns have been highlighted by the publication of more »

Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs – now also known as Responsible Finance Providers)  have a proud legacy and have made a useful contribution to promoting financial and social inclusion in the UK. But, it has to be said that, up more »

There has been much hype recently about the potential for fintech[1] to transform financial services, and improve consumer welfare. But, there have been few objective assessments of the potential impact. Therefore, today we are publishing a discussion paper to generate more »

The Centre has submitted written evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee Inquiry into the Pensions Freedom and Choice reforms. We are concerned that the risks associated with freedom and choice have not been fully appreciated. At the time of more »

Last week, Provident Financial, the subprime lender which sells expensive credit to higher risk borrowers was dumped from the FTSE100[1]. The previous week its share price fell by 65% after it issued a second profit warning in three months and more »

As its many champions constantly tell us, the City provides huge benefits to our economy in the form of contribution to GDP, tax take, balance of payments, employment and usage of financial services by UK households. This is undoubtedly true. more »