The guide was developed in partnership with the University of Bristol's Personal Finance Research Centre (PFRC).
The Finance and Leasing Association (FLA) and the UK Cards Association have launched a new guide to help finance providers identify and support customers in vulnerable situations during the credit application process.
Developed by the University of Bristol’s Personal Finance Research Centre (PFRC) in partnership with both associations, Vulnerability: a guide for lending uses the experiences of 1,666 staff across 18 finance providers.
A new protocol entitled BRUCE has been designed to help staff look for clues in a customer’s behaviour or speech that may affect their decision about entering into a credit agreement.
This comes after the PFRC produced a report on supporting vulnerable customers during the debt collection process in March.
Stephen Sklaroff, director general of the FLA, said: “This guide, and the parallel report on debt collection published in March, provides the industry with an effective way to help identify and support vulnerable customers across the full credit cycle.”
Graham Peacop, chief executive of The UK Cards Association, added: “This guide provides a valuable new resource for all credit providers to help them give that essential support to customers and secure the right outcome for the individual.”
