Financial difficulties
Helping you to manage your finances
Getting on top of your finances
Most people will encounter financial difficulties at some point in their lives. Whether it's due to redundancy, divorce or taking on too much credit, we can easily find ourselves struggling to pay our bills. This section has been designed to provide some ideas for when you cannot fulfill your financial commitments.
Our Commitment to helping customers during financial difficulty
We will be:
Fair
- Listen properly to customers and make sure we have explored, and understood, their full situation so that we can take this into account.
- Have flexible options available that are tailored to customer’s circumstances and take into account customer ability to pay when agreeing an arrangement.
- Be clear with our customers about their account situation, possible next steps and our planned actions should they fail to meet any commitment agreed.
- Ensure our policies and processes are transparent to customers.
Responsible
- Ensure that treatments, products and outcomes to support customers in / or potentially heading for financial difficulty are designed to be responsible.
- Make sure that the next steps/ actions we take on an account are fair and appropriate.
- Ensure that colleagues are trained adequately and have the skills, knowledge and experience to carry out their role effectively.
Easy
- Offer a variety of payment methods to make it easy for customers to pay.
- Respond to customer’s requests as quickly and clearly as we can.
- Be clear, straightforward and use plain English.
Personal
- Know our customer and their circumstances through listening, questioning and exploring.
- Treat customers as individuals and as we would like to be treated ourselves.
- Encourage colleagues to use their skills, knowledge and judgement to understand and ensure we have fully understood a situation and arrived at the right outcome.
Alongside our commitments to customers we will also adhere to our financial difficulties policy & procedures, where we will:
- Always deal with customers who are experiencing financial difficulties sympathetically and positively in line with the requirements of the Lending Code.
- First of all make sure we understand the customer’s financial position and then work out the best way to assist them.
- On receipt of a properly completed Common Financial Statement where it is established that there are sufficient available funds to offer creditors we will accept a reasonable offer providing it has been calculated on a pro rata basis.
- Review any repayment plan on a regular basis.
- Provide guidance to help you manage your debts through our booklet – Seeing Red – a guide to help you manage your debts (PDF - 0.3Mb).
- Signpost customers to sources of free, independent money advice.
- Deal directly with a debt advice agency where we hold authority to do so.
- When we receive authority to deal with a not-for-profit agency with regards to them producing a draft debt management plan, we allow 30 days “breathing space” for them to provide us with an offer of payment, with a further 30 days in cases where demonstrable progress has been made.
- Follow the MALG; Mental Health Good Practice Guidelines (Debt Management and Debt Collection in Relation to People with Mental Health Problems) at all times as the basis for the policy and practices for dealing with customers with mental health issues. The guidelines can be accessed from the MALG website
- Always be clear both verbally and in writing of the consequences of non-payment or not keeping within agreed arrangements/facilities.
- All staff are trained and monitored on a regular basis to ensure they are able to recognise, understand and deal appropriately with customers who may be experiencing either short or longer-term financial difficulties.
The Co-operative Bank has a partnership approach to all its business dealings. So, to make sure we are giving you sound advice, we have worked in conjunction with various free advice agencies in putting the Seeing Red guide together. We are always here to help and guide our customers through the difficult times whenever we can. So as a first step towards overcoming your financial difficulties, call 0800 028 8696. Call charges. The lines are open from 8.00am to 8.00pm Monday - Friday, 9.00am to 5.00pm Saturday and 10.00am to 6.00pm Sunday (Bank holiday opening hours may vary).
If you are having trouble paying your mortgage, we will try to help you and give you advice, please ring our mortgage helpline on 08000 288 288 or arrange a call back. The paying your mortgage section explains how we will treat you fairly, and what steps you should take to help yourself.
For help with budgeting, understanding credit and managing your credit card visit
Visa Europe's Better Money Skills website
