Designing Out Economic Abuse in the UK Banking Industry: A Call To Action

This report captures the findings of a UKFin+ project titled: Designing Out Economic Abuse in the UK Banking Industry (EP/W034042/1). The project explored the potential actions banks might take to prevent economic abuse and support affected customers. Using participatory design methods, the research team brought together victim-survivors of economic abuse and banking professionals to co-design ideas for preventing or disrupting economic abuse perpetrated through banking products, services and technologies. Between January and June 2025, two groups – each made up of three victim-survivors and three banking professionals – participated in three design sessions, followed by a one-to-one interview with a member of the research team.

The report outlines the key problems, challenges and opportunities highlighted by participants, and captures all of the intervention ideas that participants co-designed over the course of the project. The report issues a call for financial services to work with the research team to feasibility-test and pilot the proposed intervention ideas.