The second edition of its Help! Support Needs Starter Guide – a unique resource that brings together practical support needs for disabled and vulnerable consumers across essential services. This updated guide continues to fill a critical gap in the landscape of consumer support. It describes over 120 support needs already being met across financial services, energy, water, telecoms and retail/delivery sectors – offering a single reference point for firms seeking to improve accessibility and inclusion.

November 2025

Read five new things that you may have missed that the FCA have said about vulnerability. Taken from our exclusive podcast with the FCA’s Charlotte Clark, Director of Cross-Cutting Policy and Strategy.

April 2025

This guide provides a history of the FCA and vulnerability. All the way from the first-ever FCA definition of vulnerability  to their 2025 Vulnerability Review.

April 2025

There is a Golden Thread to addressing Consumer Vulnerability. It involves asking three questions:
1. Vulnerable to what? | 2. Supported how? | 3. If not us, who? Read more about how to make sure all your staff, relative to their role, should be able to answer these questions.

April 2025

Are you looking to improve how your organisation supports its customers? Our guide provides the essential tools and insights needed to deliver effective assistance.

Inside the guide you will find:

• Guidance on effective support: Practical strategies for offering meaningful help to your customers
• How to implement these changes: Suggested approach to make these changes within your organisation
• Further Support: Where you can access further support and guidance

February 2025

The Government are considering how disabled and vulnerable customers’ data could be shared to improve essential service provision across energy, water, banking, and telecommunications.   This has sparked a national debate about data-sharing and ‘Tell Us Once’ approaches.

This paper, supported and distributed by the Money Advice Trust in partnership with WhatWeNeed.Support contributes 10 principles – drawn from research, lived experience, and specialists – to design a system that reflects what vulnerable and disabled consumers need from data-sharing, rather than relying on assumptions or technical specifications alone.

May 2024

Many people experiencing a mental health problem find it difficult to disclose their condition to an essential services provider, such as a bank or energy company.

Co-authored by our Vulnerability Lead Consultant, Chris Fitch and in collaboration with the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, we’ve published new practical guides to help essential services firms support more people with mental health problems to disclose their condition.

To help firms plan the practical steps they need to continue taking based on the FCA’s finalised vulnerability guidance, we have published a new paper ‘Vulnerability: meeting expectations and achieving outcomes’.

This paper is designed to be a helpful starting point. We take you through each key expectation on vulnerability and outline what this means to your firm, what action you can take to meet the regulator’s expectations and ultimately achieve positive outcomes for your vulnerable customers and your business.

First published in 2018, appearing in a section of ‘Vulnerability: the experience of debt advisers’, this report focusses specifically on dependency and addiction and what organisations can do to support customers dealing with these issues.

If you’re interested in learning more about dependency and addiction, find out more about our course led by Jamie Compton-Rea – Supporting customers with gambling, alcohol and substance dependency.

April 2024

Inclusive design is increasingly recognised as a way to ensure markets are fair and inclusive, especially for customers in vulnerable circumstances. With an increasing focus on inclusive design from industry, regulators and firms, the Money Advice Trust has launched two reports in partnership with Fair By Design to help firms and regulators understand and translate inclusive design into practical action.

January 2021

The Money Advice Trust and the Money Advice Liaison Group (MALG), have launched a new series of guides to help firms meet data protection regulation and support customers in vulnerable circumstances. The guides are designed to help creditors and advisers understand the overlap between GDPR and vulnerability, and strike the right balance between human experience and data.

November 2020

This free guide, produced by the the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute and the Money Advice Trust, is designed to help creditors support customers affected by debt and mental health problems.

The guide features detailed information about how specific mental health conditions may affect a customers’ ability to manage money and provides practical advice on areas including:

• how to get the best out of conversations with customers about their experience of mental health problems
• When it is appropriate to ask for further evidence about a customer’s mental health problem, and when this may be the wrong course of action.

The Need to know guide for creditors is supported by UK Finance.

February 2020

The dealership guide, Decision making when purchasing a vehicle was written by the Money Advice Trust’s vulnerability experts, Chris Fitch and Colin Trend, with the support of Santander Consumer Finance. The guide outlines the role and responsibilities of credit intermediaries, such as car dealerships, when identifying and supporting customers who may have difficulty with decision-making.

The guide covers key topics including: how customers make decisions, identifying decision-making problems, supporting customers with problems, applying key principles and law and regulation. The guide is designed for staff who engage with customers or have a responsibility for customer vulnerability strategies.

July 2023

Much of the work within vulnerability so far has taken place in the person, rather than business customer space. Given the importance of small businesses to the UK economy, understanding the nature and impact of vulnerability within this context is crucial.

The Lending Standards Board (LSB) and Money Advice Trust have published Supporting business customers in vulnerable circumstances, a joint report exploring vulnerability in this important context.

The report combines insight from LSB-registered firms together with the experiences of callers to Business Debtline, the Money Advice Trust’s free advice service for small business owners.

July 2018

Supporting customers in vulnerable circumstances can be a challenge for many organisations. Mental capacity limitations are an aspect of vulnerability that is evident when a customer finds it difficult (and sometimes impossible) to understand what they are applying for, and make a decision about a product or service. Tackling the issue of ‘mental capacity’ can be daunting for any organisation. This is often due to the terminology, regulatory guidance, and legal frameworks that surround mental capacity.

This introductory guide, authored by the Money Advice Trust’s vulnerability lead Chris Fitch and building on 2017 research by the University of Bristol’s Personal Finance Research Centre (funded by the Finance and Leasing Association and UK Cards Association), aims to cut through this by clearly explaining how firms can practically identify and support customers with a mental capacity limitation.

March 2018

This guide, by the Money Advice Trust and Energy UK, aims to help better identify and support consumers in vulnerable circumstances. It provides practical tools for front-line staff to use with consumers in a range of vulnerable situations.

Written for Energy UK by the Money Advice Trust vulnerability leads Chris Fitch and Colin Trend, the guide draws on the charity’s experience of working with collections staff to improve the experience and outcomes for customers with mental health problems and in other vulnerable circumstances.

Consumer vulnerability is high on the energy industry’s agenda following Ofgem’s recently modified domestic Standards of Conduct requiring gas and electricity suppliers to better identify consumers in vulnerable situations. With the number of energy suppliers increasing, this guide comes at an important time to assist energy suppliers in training staff to improve their support to customers.

In addition to covering a range of vulnerable situations, it also includes specific guidance on helping consumers with mental health problems or mental capacity limitations.

October 2017

Written by the Trust’s vulnerability leads Chris Fitch and Colin Trend with, Jamie Evans for the University of Bristol’s Personal Finance Research Centre, this guide is an evolution of the widely-used ‘12 steps’ guide first published by the Money Advice Trust and the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

This guide, supported by the Finance & Leasing Association and The UK Cards Association, throws a welcome spotlight on a broader range of vulnerable circumstances that can affect indebted customers such serious illnesses, addictions and those customers that disclose thoughts of suicide.

March 2017

In this new season, each episode is presented in a shorter 20 minute format with a focus on a guest who will change the way that you think and act on vulnerability. The series covers issues ranging from stammering to chronic pain, empathy to loneliness, and fuel poverty to consumer psychology.

If you work in financial services, energy, water, telecommunications, government, or any other essential service sector, this series will be relevant to you.

Recap on video recordings of our Vulnerability Matters podcast, and webinars featuring a range of expert speakers and panellists on a wide range of topics:

Vulnerability Matters Podcast:

Episode 14: Hearing loss and d/Deaf customers with Tim Scannell and Chris Fitch 

Webinars:

Mental Health Awareness Week 2024: Navigating Mental Health and Finances (in collaboration with the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute)

The Money Advice Trust is committed to improving outcomes for customers in vulnerable circumstances. We work with creditors, regulators, trade bodies, business and government across the UK to improve practice.

Here you will find a range of useful resources from different organisations. These resources may not have been published by the Money Advice Trust but they have been designed to help creditor staff, help their customers in vulnerable circumstances.

Written by the Trust’s vulnerability leads Chris Fitch and Colin Trend with, Jamie Evans for the University of Bristol’s Personal Finance Research Centre, this guide is an evolution of the widely-used ‘12 steps’ guide first published by the Money Advice Trust and the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

This guide, supported by the Finance & Leasing Association and The UK Cards Association, throws a welcome spotlight on a broader range of vulnerable circumstances that can affect indebted customers such serious illnesses, addictions and those customers that disclose thoughts of suicide.

March 2017