Millions of Britons struggling with bills, FCA warns 

Making up a total of 12.9 million UK adults, these are individuals that now have low financial resilience.  

This is one of a number of findings coming in the regulator’s latest edition of its Financial Lives survey, which was carried out between February and June 2022. It also found that 7.8 million people are finding it a heavy burden to keep up with their bills, with 4.2 million missing bills or loan payments in at least three of the six months before the survey took place. 

Additionally, adults living in the most deprived areas of the UK are nearly seven times more likely to be in financial difficulty than those living in the least deprived areas, while 12% of people in the north east and 10% in the north west are in financial difficulty - compared with six percent in the south east and south west. 

In response to its findings, the FCA’s executive director of consumer and competition Sheldon Mills said: “Our research shows that people up and down the country are struggling to keep up with their bills. 

“If you are facing financial difficulty, you don’t need to struggle alone. There is free debt advice available, and we have told firms that they must work with their customers to solve any problems with payment.”