The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has published a further update on the ongoing pilot of financial risk assessments.

Written by the Director of Major Policy Projects who is leading the pilot, Helen Rhodes, the update provides information on Stage two of the pilot and the issues being explored in the final stages of the pilot.

“Financial risk assessments are a proposed way of identifying high-spending remote gambling customers who may be in financial difficulties, in order to help support them,” the Commission’s latest update on the finance risk check pilot reads.

“This is not the same as ‘affordability checks’ – the Commission does not have any regulatory requirements for affordability checks and is not proposing any. Financial risk assessments would be a much more targeted way of identifying potentially financially vulnerable customers. They would not affect a customer’s credit score if they were introduced in the future.”

Key Points Covered by the Update

The UKGC says that the pilot has given it a better understanding about the financial risk profile who met the thresholds. These customers were found to be between twice and four times more likely to have a debt management programme than those who didn’t meet the thresholds, and more between twice and five times more likely to have a default in the last 12 months.

The most remarkable is the fact that the data has reinforced the UKGC’s view that the finance risk checks will be as non-intrusive and frictionless as possible. According to the UKGC’s estimations, only 0.1% of customers would be subject to a non-frictionless assessment.

It also says that 95% of assessments carried out in stage one were possible in a frictionless matter, with this figure rising to 97% in stage two, where the total number of risk assessments carried out across three credit reference agencies rose from 860,000 to 1.7 million.

The analysis phase of stage three of the pilot is expected to continue into the summer, after which the UKGC will move into stage four.

NatCen is continuing to work as the UKGC’s evaluation partner on this pilot and post-pilot analysis work.

Director of Major Policy Projects, Helen Rhodes, said: “These further findings from the pilot have helped us understand the extent that assessments could be conducted in a frictionless manner.

“Building on our staged approach to the pilot, we will now further explore data consistency across credit reference agencies, as well as how to support operators to identify the severity of financial difficulties that a customer may be experiencing and how they could support these customers.”