Identifying vulnerable customers

At Bluestone Mortgages, we understand that every one of your client’s circumstances is different. In the current climate, it’s even more crucial that all customers are provided with the support they need so we have created a guide to help you identify vulnerable customers.

What do we mean by vulnerability?

A vulnerable individual is someone who, due to their personal circumstances, is especially susceptible to detriment, particularly when a firm is not acting with appropriate levels of care

The FCA

As you’ll be aware the FCA has identified four key drivers of vulnerability – health, life events, capability and resilience. Because of Covid-19, we expect to see more consumers in vulnerable circumstances, many of whom will be newly vulnerable and may have multiple drivers of vulnerability.

Examples of vulnerability:

• Health: Health conditions or illnesses that affect the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks
• Life events: Major life events such as bereavement, job loss or relationship breakdown
• Resilience: Low ability to withstand emotional or financial shocks
• Capability: Low knowledge of financial matters or low confidence in managing money (financial capability). Low capability in other relevant areas such as literacy or digital skills.

​​What to do if a customer is identified as vulnerable?

It’s important that we treat vulnerable customers fairly and ensure you are able to recognise and understand different characteristics of vulnerability and have systems and processes in place to help these customers.

If you have a customer that you’ve identified as vulnerable, please ensure you make us aware within the application on Bluelink. Disclosure of these issues won’t negatively affect your customer’s application but will enable us to tailor our service where required and make sure we are better placed to provide the appropriate support to the customer.

Let’s make sure we take the time to give credit where credit is due, don’t you agree?