Covid-19: protecting vulnerable consumers is a must

The past few weeks have served up a range of unprecedented challenges for everyone and we are all quite rightly focused on staying safe and healthy. But many people will also be concerned with their financial health too, which will certainly be a worry if your income has taken an unexpected hit.

This isn’t a normal time we are living in and it’s going to be difficult for people to understand how best to set up finances for the turbulence ahead. What we’re all looking for is financial resilience and confidence that we can absorb any tricky circumstances that come our way over the coming months.

As an industry we have a collective responsibility to develop options for consumers to respond to this pandemic, taking steps that will make a practical difference for those who need it the most, whilst also supporting the UK economy. So, it’s great to see progress already being made in this area.

For example, this week the three major credit reference agencies (CRAs), including Experian, confirmed that consumer credit scores will be protected when people have put ‘payment holidays’ in place as a result of COVID-19.

Payment holidays refer to a pause agreed between an individual and their lender on regular credit payments. Earlier this month the government announced that homeowners impacted by the crisis can ask their mortgage lender for a payment holiday of up to three months (for both residential and buy-to-let mortgage customers).

To help people applying for payment holidays, CRAs are implementing a special measure called an “emergency payment freeze”. This ensures that an individual’s current credit score is protected for the duration of an agreed payment holiday.

The new guidelines mean that people who agree an “emergency payment freeze” with one or more lender, because of their financial circumstances, shouldn’t see missed payments building up on those accounts on their credit reports.

But it’s essential that people struggling to make ends meet contact their lenders and other providers as soon as possible to discuss what support may be available and appropriate. This could include reduced payments, paused payments, increased credit limits, or other forms of forbearance.

We’re really pleased to have reached an industry-wide agreement on this. Public awareness of credit scores and the role they play continue to grow, so we hope the news that scores will be shielded from these emergency payment freezes will provide some comfort and be one less thing for people to worry about at this challenging time.