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About 1.5 million low income households use no financial services. This represents 2 million adults, mostly not in employment, living on benefits, social housing tenants. Many of them live in deprived communities.
Following the Social Exclusion Unit's report on deprived neighbourhoods in 1997, PAT 14, a mixed group of civil servants and outside experts, was appointed by the Treasury in November 1998 to look at the scope for widening access to financial services. It was asked to examine:
the scope for development of credit unions, building on planned legislative change;
increasing the availability of insurance services to deprived communities;
the role of retail banks, Post Offices and other organisations in provding access to and delivery of financial services in deprived neighbourhoods.
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