Opportunities for digital banking: Lived experiences of financially vulnerable customers in the UK

The financial sector is currently implementing the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) customer duty (CD) legislation, focusing on financially vulnerable customers. Recent statistics highlight the urgency around this context: 14 million people report having less than £100 in savings, and 11.5 million people are terminating vital insurance policies because of affordability concerns during the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. The focus of CD has shown a lack of insights from the perspective of financially excluded and vulnerable UK customers. The financial sector can create value for these customers by reflecting on assumptions of vulnerability when training machine learning algorithms in determining access to financial products and services based on the ability to pay and personal circumstances. We examine industry and customer vulnerability assumptions, including discussions of levels of trust in, and scepticism of, digital banking (DB). Likewise, we provide evidence-based suggestions to facilitate financial providers to scrutinise their responsible lending practices. In so doing, DB lenders could address the tenets of CD and environmental, social and governance directives to inform future product and service design to drive responsible, inclusive, fair and transparent DB across society.