Episode 26: Who are you calling vulnerable? Interview with Chris Fitch

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Show notes

Chris Fitch is a researcher at University of Bristol’s Personal Finance Research Centre and the Vulnerability Lead for the Money Advice Trust’s creditor programmes. He researches the needs of customers in vulnerable situations and what creditors can do to improve their services so these customers have a good experience and don’t suffer from loss or harm. He’s also very funny and charming.

In this episode we talk about why it’s often better not to try and define what we mean by a “vulnerable customer”. We discuss how banks, utilities and other essential services are upping their game when it comes to people in vulnerable circumstances. We discuss people’s reactions to the word ‘vulnerable’ - why does it make people uncomfortable and what could we or should we do about that.

We also talk about what to do if you think you might count as vulnerable in the eyes of your providers and how to ask for additional support. And for listeners who work for creditors we recommend checking out the Money Advice Trust’s training and vulnerability resources.

Chris mentions the work of David Eagleman especially his paper with Don Vaughn “Empathic Neural Responses Predict Group Allegiance” published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.