Completed Project Case Study: Designing Out Economic Abuse in the UK Banking Industry  

Summary 

Economic abuse is a devastating form of domestic abuse in which financial products and technologies are manipulated by abusers to inflict harm on victim-survivors. Abusers may open credit cards in a partner’s name, drain joint accounts without consent, stalk them through real-time transaction alerts, or send abusive messages via online payment descriptions. While UK banks are beginning to recognise these harms, most current initiatives are reactive responding after the abuse has already occurred. 

Led by Dr Clare Wiper (Northumbria University) with Dr Belén Barros Penña (City St George’s University of London), and in partnership with the national charity Surviving Economic Abuse (SEA), this 12-month UKFin+ feasibility project takes a proactive approach. By working directly with victim-survivors and banking professionals, the project is re-imagining how banking services and technologies can be designed to prevent economic abuse before it happens. 

The Challenge 

The rise of digital banking, open banking APIs, and mobile financial tools has created new opportunities for economic abuse. Abusers with access to devices or login details can misuse everyday features to monitor, control, and inflict financial harm. Existing measures in the sector, such as specialist domestic and financial abuse teams, are vital but largely reactive, leaving many victim-survivors vulnerable to economic harm. 

Banks now face a “wicked problem”: how to protect customers from intimate partner abuse while still providing fast, flexible services. To date, little research has examined how everyday banking features could be redesigned to remove opportunities for abuse at their root. 

The Research Approach 

Victim-survivors of economic abuse led the design process alongside banking professionals from five major UK firms. Two working groups, each made up of three victim-survivors and three banking professionals, met to identify key risks, rethink banking products, and imagine safer alternatives. 

The team ensured ethical, trauma-informed participation by offering counselling support, travel bursaries, and fair compensation to participants. Activities were carefully designed to focus on outcomes, rather than requiring survivors to re-tell abuse experiences. 

Key Findings 

The design sessions revealed both challenges and opportunities. Victim-survivors highlighted how seemingly “neutral” banking functions like joint accounts, transaction notifications, and online messaging can be turned into tools of abuse. At the same time, they generated creative ideas for designing out these risks. 

Two priority intervention ideas emerged: 

Detecting and Disclosing Economic Abuse. This involves combining proactive detection of suspicious patterns (such as repeated small withdrawals or abusive payment references) with safe, supported disclosure routes. Victim-survivors stressed the need for human oversight and trauma-informed staff who can provide tailored, flexible responses. 

Joint Account Protections and Education. This involves redesign joint accounts to allow balances to be split in cases of abuse, require dual consent for large withdrawals, and embed education about economic abuse at the point of account opening. 

These findings demonstrate how co-design can generate practical intervention ideas that can be tested for feasibility and potential implementation by industry professionals 

The Impact 

The project has already had a significant influence. At a stakeholder event in July 2025, victim-survivors presented their design proposals to over 50 attendees from the financial services and third sectors, including the Financial Conduct Authority. The event sparked follow-up discussions with multiple banks about piloting the interventions. 

Overall, the project enhances understandings of FinTech-enabled economic abuse and shows how participatory design methods can address complex issues in financial services. For SEA, it has helped to build their evidence base and will provide new tools for advocacy and training. For the industry, the project findings provide a roadmap for safer, fairer, and more inclusive financial products that help reduce harm to vulnerable customers while lowering complaints, reputational risks, and long-term costs 

The role of UKFin+ 

This project was made possible through the support of UKFin+, which provided funding, visibility, and a collaborative framework to bring together academics and industry. By facilitating connections between researchers, banking professionals, victim-survivors and the charity Surviving Economic Abuse, UKFin+ enabled the team to address a complex social problem that no single sector can tackle alone. The network’s emphasis on co-production and practical impact has ensured that the outcomes are not only academically rigorous but also directly relevant to industry and policy. 

What Happens Next 

The research team will publish a major report in November 2025, Designing Out Economic Abuse in the UK Banking Industry: A Call to Action. Academic papers are already in preparation, and further funding bids are underway. Conversations are ongoing with several banks about piloting the proposed solutions, and SEA plan to integrate the findings into its national advocacy and consultancy work. 

This feasibility project marks a step-change: moving from reactive responses to proactive prevention of economic abuse in financial services. By centring the voices of victim-survivors, the project not only generates innovative design interventions but also demonstrates how collaboration across academia, industry, and the third sector can address one of finance’s most urgent social challenges. 

Podcast: Debt talk Financial Abuse & Our Communities

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