Financial Inclusion John Hirst and Richard Wealleans The

Financial Inclusion John Hirst and Richard Wealleans The Passage

Who we are • The Passage was founded in 1863 as an orphanage and school for disadvantaged children in Westminster • It has operated a day centre for homeless people since 1980 • John Hirst retired from Barclays Personal Investment Management in 2004 • Since that time he has provided bank account and one to one money advice to Passage service users • Richard Wealleans trained as an economist specialising in labour market theory • He has worked in employment projects for homeless people since 1997

The Problem • The Passage saw over 5000 insecurely accommodated people in 2006 • Over half were verified rough sleepers • People in such circumstances frequently lose their personal documents or have them stolen • Without documents it is hard to apply for bank accounts and existing accounts become dormant • The bank and other creditors cannot contact you on the street so debts spiral

What we did • Our CEO invited John Varley, the CEO of Barclays to come and meet our service users, which he did • John assigned Barclays community affairs to investigate and they found that it was possible to open bank accounts for people without an address or id and still stay within FSA rules • Our role at the Passage is to provide Barclays with a certificate stating that we believe the service user applying for an account is actually who he says he is. • The clients use the day centre’s address as their residential address on the application form and can then change that when they have an address of their own. • Here is an example of an application form and a certificate

Application 1. This is a standard application form for a Barclays Cash Card account 2. The account can accept benefits and wages. By contrast, the post office cash account (POCA) can only accept benefits 3. The account can be used to set up direct debits but has no overdraft or credit facility 4. The standard application asks for various forms of id, which often the clients do not have 5. To overcome this we provide them with a Passage certificate

Certificate 1. Basic Details, Name etc 2. Declaration that client cannot be expected to provide documentation 3. If client has any corroboratory documents, statement that worker has seen them 4. Declaration that worker does not believe the account is intended for criminal activity and that worker will inform Barclays if this belief changes

Financial Inclusion Is more than setting up bank accounts Bank Account Fund Recovery FI Pensions Debt Advice

What we have discovered • Frequently those who ask for a bank account already have one, but it contains a debt • Many of those in debt only need some simple encouragement and basic support to do something about it • Few clients (women especially) know about their pension future. Women often face a worse future than men • A surprising number of clients have recoverable funds in the form of: money owed to them from their share of the sale of the marital home, dormant accounts where they have lost the access details, tax rebates etc • Case Study

Business as usual • The banks will help, but you must ask them to. Whoever your organisation banks with it will have a community affairs department • If you are to receive long term support, you need the backing of a senior member of the banks staff. This will lead to your applications being treated as part of the banks normal business rather than as ‘special’ Operating with a local ‘special agreement’ will mean that you will probably have to re-apply for help whenever your local manager moves on

Your response - Know of something similar? - Could this approach work for you, or a partner agency?