The FCA have published a report on its Financial Lives Survey 2018.
The survey is the FCA’s largest tracking survey of adults and their finances, covering 13,000 face-to-face and online interviews. Key findings include:
- compared with the UK average of 50%, 55% of adults in the North West and 54% of adults in rural areas show characteristics of potential vulnerability;
- access to financial services is a particular issue in rural areas;
- greater proportions of adults use consumer credit in urban (77%) than rural (68%) areas;
- there is a higher concentration of adults with high-cost loans in urban areas (2.4m) than in rural areas (0.6m);
- only 40% of UK adults are confident in the UK financial services industry, and only 31% feel that financial firms are honest and transparent; and
- in the last 12 months, 23% of adults have experienced an unsolicited approach about pensions or investments that might be a scam.