A groundbreaking six-month collaborative study has brought to light the urgent need for the UK banking industry to fundamentally redesign its systems, shifting from a reactive stance on economic abuse to a proactive model of prevention. The research, a joint effort by experts from Northumbria University and the University of London in partnership with the national charity Surviving Economic Abuse, meticulously documents how everyday financial products, services, and technologies are deliberately manipulated by abusers. These tools, intended for convenience and empowerment, are frequently weaponized to exert control, intimidate, and inflict profound, lasting harm on victims. The resulting report presents a comprehensive call to action, providing a clear roadmap for financial institutions to embed safety and protection into the very architecture of their offerings. By identifying the systemic vulnerabilities that enable such abuse, the study challenges the industry to move beyond isolated support measures and instead engineer a financial environment where such exploitation becomes structurally difficult, if not impossible. This paradigm shift focuses on prevention by design, urging banks to take a leading role in safeguarding their most vulnerable customers before harm occurs.
A New Collaborative Framework
The investigation revealed a disturbing pattern where the efficiency and convenience of modern banking have created unintended loopholes that abusers exploit with precision. Financial products designed for shared living and seamless transactions, such as joint accounts and instant payment apps, can become instruments of coercion and control in the wrong hands. The research underscores that this is not an issue of niche product flaws but a systemic problem rooted in a design philosophy that has historically prioritized speed over safety. The study’s authors argue that banks possess a significant and largely untapped opportunity to disrupt these patterns through proactive, and often simple, adjustments to their processes and digital interfaces. The challenge lies in re-evaluating the entire customer journey through the lens of potential misuse. This requires a cultural shift within financial institutions, moving from a position of responding to reported incidents to one of anticipating and mitigating risks at every point of customer interaction, from account opening to daily digital banking. The report frames this not as a burden but as a fundamental responsibility in an increasingly digital financial world.
At the core of the study’s methodology was an innovative and deeply human-centered approach that could serve as a model for future industry reforms. Researchers facilitated a unique collaboration, bringing together a group of six victim-survivors with six senior professionals from five of the UK’s major banks. This co-design process ensured that the people with direct, lived experience of economic abuse were not merely consulted but were central to conceiving and developing tangible solutions. The powerful consensus emerging from these sessions was that the most effective and durable interventions arise when survivor expertise is valued and integrated from the outset. This direct engagement allowed banking professionals to gain a profound understanding of how their products are weaponized, moving beyond abstract data to the human reality of the harm caused. By placing survivors at the heart of the design process, the project demonstrated a clear path for banks to transition from a reactive posture—addressing abuse after the fact—to a truly preventative one, creating systems that are inherently safer for everyone.
Tangible Interventions for Protection
The recommendations put forth by the victim-survivor participants were both practical and transformative, prioritizing two critical areas for immediate action. The first involves the proactive detection of financial patterns that may signal economic abuse. This would require banks to develop sophisticated monitoring systems capable of identifying unusual activities, such as sudden, unexplained account drainage or a consistent pattern of small, controlling transactions. Crucially, any flagged activity would then be handled by specialist, trauma-informed staff trained to offer support discreetly and effectively. The second major priority focused on redesigning joint account structures to offer greater individual protection. Participants advocated for a fundamental change in terms and conditions that would treat account holders more like “tenants in common” in property law. This legal concept would ensure that each party has a distinct, protected share in the account, preventing one individual from unilaterally seizing all the funds and leaving the other financially destitute. This structural change, coupled with enhanced education at the point of account opening, would provide a powerful, built-in safeguard against a common form of abuse.
Beyond these foundational changes, the report details a suite of innovative technological and procedural safeguards designed to empower and protect vulnerable customers. A key proposal is the implementation of a “safe mode” for online and mobile banking, which would allow a user to instantly restrict certain features or create a more secure, less visible digital environment if they feel they are being monitored or coerced. Another powerful tool suggested is a customer-controlled lending flag, enabling individuals to add a confidential note to their own account, such as “do not lend to me,” which would be visible only to bank staff. This could prevent abusers from taking out loans in a victim’s name. For larger financial commitments, the study recommends separate and independent credit checks for each individual applying for a joint mortgage, preventing debt from being forced upon an unwilling party. Furthermore, the report calls for the development and integration of technology capable of detecting coerced signatures, adding another layer of security to formal agreements. These proposals collectively illustrate a future where financial technology is consciously designed to build a safer, more inclusive banking system.
Reshaping Financial Infrastructure
The comprehensive research ultimately concluded that the modern financial infrastructure, meticulously engineered for speed and user convenience, had inadvertently created systemic vulnerabilities. These very features were shown to be easily misappropriated for malicious purposes, transforming everyday banking tools into instruments of harm. The study’s findings presented a compelling case that financial institutions had a critical opportunity to become proactive agents of prevention. It was argued that this did not necessarily require a complete overhaul but could often be achieved through thoughtful, incremental changes, such as incorporating an additional security question during the joint account setup process or ensuring that digital features were developed with survivor safety as a core design principle. While the report acknowledged the significant hurdles banks faced—including stringent regulatory frameworks, the rapid pace of technological change that often benefits abusers, and the inherent difficulty of intervening without escalating risk for a victim—it framed these not as insurmountable barriers but as complex challenges that could be overcome through innovative, survivor-led design. The practical framework it laid out provided a clear pathway for financial firms to create more equitable products, ultimately working to prevent economic abuse before it could begin.
