The poverty premium describes the extra costs people on low incomes and in poverty pay for essential goods and services. In 2016, we designed a methodology to empirically measure, for the first time, the proportion of UK households affected by the premium – and by how much. This established a replicable approach to measuring the premium. Our subsequent research has provided detailed insights into how the premium is experienced by different groups and across different regions. In 2017, our research underpinned a substantial social investment to eliminate the poverty premium in the UK, and provided an empirically-informed impetus for launching an All-Party Parliamentary Group inquiry into the poverty premium.

Key outputs:

• The Poverty Premium - When low-income households pay more for goods and services
• Making the Poverty Premium History - A practical guide for business and policy makers
• From headline statistics to lived experiences: a new approach to measuring the poverty premium
• The poverty premium: a customer perspective
• The inequality of poverty: exploring the link between the poverty premium and protected characteristics
• Mapping the poverty premium in Britain

Read a 2018 impact story about our research into the poverty premium.

Around half of UK adults are estimated to be circumstantially vulnerable, and therefore more susceptible to harm when engaging with firms in the financial services and energy sectors. Many of these people may not receive fair treatment because consumer protection measures are designed around the notion of an 'average' consumer. Our research established a sector-wide evidence base and directly improved policy and practice across these markets, in turn improving outcomes for the vulnerable people who interact with them. We have translated the lived experience of debt advisers, frontline lenders and debt collectors into practical research-led guidance, tools and protocols – endorsed and promoted by major trade bodies, and used by lenders and advisers – to help customer-facing staff support vulnerable consumers and prevent foreseeable customer harm.

Key outputs

• Vulnerability: a guide for advice agencies – 12 steps for treating clients in vulnerable situations fairly
• Vulnerability: a guide for lending
• Vulnerability: a guide for debt collection
• Financial difficulty and mental wellbeing - a summary of our 2017 workshop series
• Vulnerability, mental health, and the energy sector
• Sharing is caring? Could data sharing improve the support provided to customers in vulnerable situations?

Read a 2022 article on our work in this area.

Since 2019, we have established a research programme to explore how the financial services industry – including banks, building societies, credit unions, regulators – can help reduce gambling-related harm in the UK. We produced an evidence-led blueprint for bank card gambling blockers, and a guide exploring how regulatory expectations around the fair treatment of vulnerable customers can be applied to harmful gambling. The guide offers practical examples of how regulated firms can identify and support customers at risk of gambling harm. In 2021, we received ESRC IAA funding to extend this guidance to credit unions. In the last few years we have investigated the geography of gambling premises in the UK; women's experiences of gambling harm; and the efficacy of existing ‘safer gambling’ messages in Britain. Most recently, we have explored the relationship between gambling and problem debt. In 2022, PFRC and wider research on gambling-related harms led to the establishment of the Bristol Hub for Gambling Harms Research.

Key outputs:

• A Blueprint for Bank Card Gambling Blockers
• Gambling, vulnerability and FCA compliance
• The geography of gambling premises in Britain
• Exploring access to cash within gambling premises in Britain
• Exploring alternatives to 'safer gambling' messages
• Women's experiences of gambling and gambling harm
• Credit unions and gambling: A practical guide to support members
• Exploring the links between gambling and problem debt

Early research into financial exclusion considered it as a geographical phenomenon. Our research established financial exclusion as a more complex phenomenon, grounded in consumer experience, with geographical issues playing one part in explaining patterns of exclusion. These early studies initiated a major research programme that shaped financial inclusion policy in the UK and informed research and policy internationally, including: seminal research to measure the level and nature of financial exclusion in the UK; and studies looking at ways of improving access to banking, credit, insurance and savings for low-income households. Our research has directly informed UK government policies, including the successful achievement of a shared government and industry target to halve the number of adults in households without a bank account; and funding to extend affordable credit union loans and savings products to an additional one million low-income people. 

Key outputs:

• Kept out or opted out? Understanding and combating financial exclusion
• In or out? Financial exclusion: a literature and research review
• Tackling financial exclusion: an area-based approach
• Toward financial inclusion in the UK: progress and challenges
• Financial services provision and the prevention of financial exclusion
• Evaluation of the financial inclusion Growth Fund
• Access to essential services for low-income people

Read an article on improving access to financial services.

We developed the UK’s first quantitative baseline survey of financial capability. The survey was a significant departure from previous methodologies by not only assessing knowledge, but also skills and behaviours. The survey results became the basis for the UK financial regulator's understanding of financial capability in the UK, and our analysis was used to set priorities for its £90m National Strategy for Financial Capability. International bodies regarded the baseline survey as a model for their own work and the UK methodology was adopted by countries including Ireland, Canada and the Netherlands. The World Bank led a substantial research and evaluation programme in low- and middle-income countries that used the UK approach.

Key outputs:

• Measuring financial capability: an exploratory study
• Levels of financial capability in the UK
• The baseline survey of financial capability in the UK
• Framework for the development of financial literacy baseline surveys
• Measuring levels of financial capability and the effectiveness of financial education
• Defining, measuring and predicting financial capability in the UK

Read an article on benchmarking financial capability.