At Lendology, we’re committed to supporting vulnerable customers and ensuring that they receive the support they need throughout the borrowing process. In this post, we’ll discuss our approach to adapting our services to provide inclusive financial services.
We recently attended a training session on recognising and supporting vulnerable customers, hosted by The Money Advice Trust. The session helped us to better understand the challenges faced by people and how we can best support them. We recognise that our customers may face vulnerabilities at any stage of the application or post-loan process, either due to temporary circumstantial changes or long-term health or financial changes.
To model best practice in the lending industry, we’re implementing a range of support measures. These include:
- Training our staff: We ensure that all of our staff are trained to recognise and support customers to complete their home improvement loan journey.
- Providing tailored support: We recognise that everybody is unique, so we provide tailored support to meet individual needs. This may include providing information in alternative formats, such as large print, providing translation services, or delivering off-line advice for people digitally excluded. For customers with changes to their financial circumstances, whether short-term or longer, we provide free advice services on our website such as our benefits calculator to support income maximisation, and our budgeting tools to provide money skills. We offer a range of forbearance options, working with customers, not against them. On the death of a customer, we provide an 18 month interest freezer period to allow the sale of the property.
- Signposting: We work with local and national organisations to ensure seamless signposting and referrals into complementary or “better fit” services for our customers. This may include services such as local, free energy advice for accessing boiler grants, or services such as LifeLedger to provide a “say it once” service on bereavement.
- Improving accessibility: We’re committed to making our services as accessible as possible for all customers. As part of this commitment, we recently partnered with SignVideo to offer live British Sign Language services https://www.lendology.org.uk/blog/lendology-raises-awareness-of-deaf-awareness-week-to-improve-accessibility/
- Ongoing monitoring: We continuously monitor our processes to ensure that they are inclusive and accessible. We welcome feedback from our customers on how we can improve our products and services.
We’re proud to be taking a proactive approach to providing inclusive financial services. If you have any questions about our approach to supporting vulnerable customers, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
