Customer Understanding of FRAs
Request
- Has the Commission identified customer understanding and financial education as an area requiring further development as Financial Risk Assessments are rolled out?
- Has any consideration been given to how consumers might be signposted towards understanding and improving the financial information that contributed to an assessment?
- During the pilot work, was any feedback received from operators regarding customer confusion, complaints, or requests for further explanation following discussions around financial risk indicators?
- Are there any implementation groups or future consultations considering the consumer support journey once financial vulnerability or financial risk has been identified?
- Do you see any role for independent organisations helping consumers understand their financial information in support of these objectives.
Response
Thank you for your request which has been processed under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).
In your email you have requested:
- Has the Commission identified customer understanding and financial education as an area requiring further development as Financial Risk Assessments are rolled out?
- Has any consideration been given to how consumers might be signposted towards understanding and improving the financial information that contributed to an assessment?
- During the pilot work, was any feedback received from operators regarding customer confusion, complaints, or requests for further explanation following discussions around financial risk indicators?
- Are there any implementation groups or future consultations considering the consumer support journey once financial vulnerability or financial risk has been identified?
- Do you see any role for independent organisations helping consumers understand their financial information in support of these objectives.
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 has previously released information about the pilot of financial risk assessments and insights from implementation of financial vulnerability checks through a series of blogs which you may find useful, such as:
Blog - Financial risk assessments update – July 2026 (opens in new tab)
Blog - Financial risk assessments pilot update (opens in new tab)
Blog - Financial risk assessments pilot – update on progress (opens in new tab)
Blog - Financial risk assessments pilot – update on Stage two (opens in new tab)
Blog - Financial risk assessments pilot – update on post-pilot analysis (opens in new tab)
Blog - Financial vulnerability checks: Insights from implementation (opens in new tab)
In relation to your request, the Commission is taking a careful and staged approach to implementing financial risk assessments. This includes working with those implementing the assessments on transparency to consumers. It also includes the customer support journey once financial difficulties have been identified following a financial risk assessment.
Financial risk will continue to be considered alongside other indicators of harm that are available to operators such as gambling behaviour, when operators are considering appropriate action. There will also be a role in signposting to existing mechanisms that are already in place for all sectors if a customer considers that there may be errors on their credit file.
As the pilot was not implemented in the live environment, there were no specific findings related to customer understanding. As no action was taken for any consumers based on a financial risk assessment during the pilot, consumer complaints or requests for explanation did not form part of pilot findings.
Review of the decision
If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your Freedom of Information request you are entitled to an internal review of our decision. You should write to FOI Team, Gambling Commission, 4th floor, Victoria Square House, Victoria Square, Birmingham, B2 4BP or by reply to this email.
Please note, internal review requests should be made within 40 working days of the initial response. Requests made outside this timeframe will not be processed.
If you are not content with the outcome of our review, you may then apply directly to the Information Commissioner (ICO) for a decision. Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have already exhausted the review procedure provided by the Gambling Commission.
It should be noted that if you wish to raise a complaint with the ICO about the Commission’s handling of your request for information, then you are required to do so within six weeks of receiving your final response or last substantive contact with us.
The ICO can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s Office (opens in a new tab), Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.
Information Management Team
Gambling Commission