Wealth & assets

Financial exclusion

Cara Brown
Cara Brown

This briefing, published in partnership with Transact, defines ‘financial exclusion,’ explains the costs of financial exclusion and sets out the key developments and policy themes in this area in the last decade.

Key findings

  • The briefing explains that the term ‘financial exclusion’ is used in different ways, but is most often defined as a broad concept describing a lack of access to, and use of, a range of financial services. It is most closely associated with poverty and low income and tends to be geographically focused, with large numbers of financially excluded people living in areas of high deprivation.
  • Key developments in this area include the Social Exclusion Unit’s 1998 report on financial services, the establishment of the Financial Inclusion Taskforce and the Treasury Select Committee’s report calling on the Treasury to publish a long term financial inclusion strategy.
  • As interest in financial exclusion has grown, a number of key policy themes have emerged. The briefing details these themes.

Further reading

Inequality control
Why wealth inequality has not increased while asset prices have soared and what that means for the future
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Simon Pittaway
Perfectly adequate?
Revisiting pensions adequacy 20 years after the Pensions Commission
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Molly Broome, Ian Mulheirn
Calculating a Living Pension: the 2024 update
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Molly Broome
Cara Brown
Cara Brown Former External Affairs Manager