The Survivor Inclusion Initiative (SII) was established in 2019 to foster access to financial services for survivors of modern slavery in the UK, US, and Canada. However, a recent expert review revealed that survivors struggle to address the long-term consequences of trafficking, particularly the adverse mark on their credit history, which hinders their financial access. The Debt Bondage Repair Act (DBRA) was established in the US in 2021 to provide fairer access to victims of trafficking. The SII is working with financial institutions to develop an effective response to survivors’ financial needs.
Survivors’ primary concerns are the vetting process, onboarding, and transaction monitoring for credit. Survivor support organisations could assess and identify survivors’ status through an attestation, but banks would have to provide flexible internal processes to facilitate credit access. Financial institutions’ typical onboarding process is automated, leading to automatic adverse credit rejection. Still, financial institutions could offer personalised solutions, such as manual review processes, to address this issue. Survivors’ long-term financial capacity could also increase through special products, such as low-risk credit, financial literacy training, and credit repair.
Survivor support organisations could attest survivors’ status to help banks determine which products and manual processes to facilitate survivors’ financial inclusion. To mitigate adverse credit history effects, manual review processes could replace automated onboarding processes. Financial institutions accessing adverse credit records could establish survivor-informed procedures to dismiss negative credit history.
Survivors could access bespoke credit products with financial literacy training, low credit limits, and progressive credit scaling. Regulators and government agencies could facilitate survivors’ status through third parties in verifying documentation preparation to access bespoke products and services. The need for personalisation in survivors’ financial processes is key in managing the long-term effects of adverse credit history.