Category Archives: Uncategorized

UK citizens have gained much from a huge range of consumer and social protection measures introduced through, or influenced by, EU legislation and regulations[1]. Consumer protection measures can be found across a wide range of markets including financial services, food, more »

HM Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have recently launched the Financial Advice Market Review (FAMR)[1] to address the so-called ‘financial advice gap’ in the UK – concerns that large numbers of consumers do not have access to good more »

We recognise at the Financial Inclusion Centre that London isn’t the only region in the UK facing a housing crisis. But, for a number of reasons, the crisis does seem particularly acute in London and requires special interventions. We take the view more »

We have spent the first weeks of the New Year undertaking a stocktake of the critical policy issues in financial services to help us plan our work and target our campaigning activities. Below we summarise what we think are the more »

The investment returns achieved by pension funds are critical. Underperformance affects the retirement incomes of savers, affects the levels of contributions required by employers, employees, the state and other savers, and has other wider externality costs for the real economy. more »

Sponsored by the ACCA, the objectives of the report were to: develop a detailed understanding of the business models underpinning UK payday lending; inform the debate about the level and structure of the new charge cap; and examine which other more »

Our long-awaited evaluation of London Mutual Credit Union’s payday loan scheme has been published today. The report demonstrates that not only does affordable short term borrowing through a credit union have the potential to be an effective way of diverting more »

With social housing residents already far more likely to be marginalised from mainstream financial services and continuing to experience financial difficulties in this tough economic environment, social housing providers are implementing a raft of financial inclusion initiatives.    Most social landlords more »

The UK remains mired in the fall-out from the unprecedented and devastating financial crisis which began in 2007/08 and continues to beset our financial system and economy. That much is recognised but what we have perhaps not faced up to more »

A theme we keep returning to at the Centre is the worrying growth in payday and other forms of subprime lenders and the impact this has on vulnerable households and communities. We like to see successful businesses but, unfortunately, this more »