According to data from MorganAsh Resilience System (MARS), around a quarter – 22% – of customer vulnerability assessments on the platform have questions on domestic abuse.
MorganAsh said many firms are omitting these questions from their vulnerability assessments, potentially around concerns of embarrassment, awkwardness or annoying customers.
However, the report noted that in assessments where these questions are included, 5% of consumers disclosed that they were suffering from some form of abuse.
This is comparable to national average of around 5-8%.
MorganAsh said the findings point to a “systemic gap” across wider financial services, in spite of strong trade body and charity guidance.
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New guidance released by the Chartered Insurance Institute and Personal Finance Society aims to give firms a practical implementation guide to managing customer vulnerability.
Weaknesses in identifications and assessment in monitoring have also been flagged by consumer advocates, as well as the separation of finances, joint products and coerced debt.
Andrew Gething, managing director of MorganAsh, said: “Many firms are at present opting to not to include coercion or abuse indicators within their vulnerability assessments, for fear of annoying their clients.
“Social stigma on the topic, a finance industry predominantly managed by men, and fear of embarrassing conversations all lead to reluctance within the industry to even start to address the problem.”
He added: “While some firms have adopted the guidance of charities and trade bodies, this is mainly restricted to training frontline staff to be more empathetic and pick up the pieces when alerted to abuse – without making material changes.
“There is a need to embed identification, monitoring, support and reporting within firms in the same way as all other vulnerabilities. In truth, though, there are still many firms falling short at this stage, lacking the knowledge, technology and data to identify and respond to customer vulnerability more broadly.”
