On 5 November 2025, HM Treasury (HMT) published the Financial Inclusion Strategy (the Strategy), setting out the government’s plan to improve the financial inclusion and wellbeing of households across the UK.
The Strategy has been shaped by the Financial Inclusion Committee and various stakeholders which includes targeted interventions across three themes – economic abuse, mental health and accessibility – to address the challenges and barriers toward financial inclusion.
Key interventions of the Strategy related to financial services include:
- Digital inclusion and access to banking: The Strategy will make it easier for people who lack standard identification to open bank accounts through a pilot partnership between the largest banks and the third sector. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has also committed to undertaking and publishing a formal review of the cash regime’s effectiveness in due course to ensure cash as a viable payment method and ensure it is meeting the needs of consumers and businesses. The Strategy also mentions the first steps in the Government’s Digital Inclusion Action Plan to tackle the issue of digital exclusion and further opportunities in the Government’s National Payments Vision to embed and support financial inclusion. It further mentions that UK Finance will launch a Code of Practice for Accessible Cards, providing a set of guidelines and accessibility features on card products for participating firms.
- Support for savings: Deliver regulatory clarity to enable employers to offer workplace savings schemes and launch a National Coalition of Employers to drive awareness and adoption of workplace savings schemes.
- Financial resilience through insurance: Launch a pilot led by Fair4All Finance to explore the uptake of contents insurance among social renters in England and convene a working group on how travel insurance underwriting decisions are reached for those with pre-existing mental health conditions, to be led by the ABI, working with the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute and the FCA.
- Access to affordable credit: Launch a new £30 million fund to support credit union transformation in England alongside common bond reforms to enable credit unions to grow and develop an approach to tackle the impact of coerced debt on victim-survivors’ credit files. The strategy also mentions that the government encourages lenders to consider integrating income maximisation tools to consumers into their customer journeys. Alongside the reform of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, the government will consider the merits of credit broking exemptions being extended beyond registered social landlords to capture other organisations who play a role in supporting consumers with their finances. More widely, the FCA will be taking forward measures proposed in its Credit Information Market Study to improve the coverage and quality of credit information to provide a more comprehensive view of consumers’ financial circumstances.
- Tackling problem debt: Deliver fairer treatment for people in debt through improved public sector debt collection practices and ensure more people can access specialist debt advice through increased funding and more efficient services.
- Financial education and capability: The Strategy includes making financial education compulsory in primary schools in England,as part of a new statutory requirement to teach citizenship, ensuring that children are supported to develop healthy attitudes to money at an early age. It also refers to funding programmes to support financially excluded and underserved consumers to build their skills and confidence.
The Strategy’s implementation will be reviewed two years from its publication to provide an update on its progress.