Now in its eighth year, Credit Strategy has teamed up with Experian to launch the annual Credit Awareness Week campaign. 

Being held the week of 26th February 2024, the campaign aims to educate people and businesses about how to manage their finances as well as improve their understanding of how the finance and credit industry works. Since its original launch in 2017, the campaign has reached millions of consumers in the UK.

New research

To mark this year’s Credit Awareness Week, new research was commissioned to gather some insights from British businesses. What we discovered is they are aware how to improve their customer’s financial health but cite some challenges.

Nearly 60% admit they could be doing more to educate consumers on how to manage their finances.

74% are worried about financial security and fraud with three quarters agreeing protection from financial crime was a priority for their business.

59% are considering or committing investment to helping those with support needs communicate with their business.

What is stopping them from preventing financial crime or providing the right communications services, both of which impact financial health? A lack of budget, lack of internal resource and not having the right technology place.

As an industry we need to support businesses by educating them more on all aspects of improving financial health; for themselves and their customers. However, more importantly, we need data-driven innovation and industry collaboration to help provide better solutions and services. 

Here are two ways Experian is doing exactly that:

Utilising technology for good

With the Consumer Duty regulation and the Financial Conduct Authority estimating that 7.4 million people have faced difficulties reaching their service providers, Experian looked at how to solve the problem with innovation and technology. In collaboration with leading UK companies such as HSBC UK, Nationwide Building Society, Tesco Bank, NewDay, Co-operative Bank, and Ovo, they launched The Experian Support Hub. It offers a portal for consumers to communicate their support needs to multiple businesses, in a simple and consistent way.

This service is designed to solve the key consumer challenges of time and empowerment– by reducing the repetitive process of disclosing support needs to many different service providers. In addition, it can be done through a well-designed, accessible user interface that gives consumers transparency and control of their information.

Tackling fraud and financial crime through data sharing

A key part of detecting fraud and financial crime and protecting those most vulnerable in society is public and private data sharing and disclosing information on suspicious businesses and individuals. Fraud intelligence currently sits in silos across the public and private sector and there is no single national fraud or Economic Crime database. This creates blind spots.

After the recently passed Economic Crime and Transparency Act, creating a single Economic Crime database will be possible. Experian vision’s is to start building a fraud and AML bureau with public authorities and financial institutions all coming on board.

Ultimately by the industry innovating and collaborating, this wil ensure both businesses and consumers have the right understanding and services in place to improve their financial health.