Policy paper

Financial Inclusion Commitee: terms of reference

Updated 20 December 2024

The Financial Inclusion Committee’s mission is to tackle barriers to individual and households’ ability to access affordable and appropriate financial products and services. 

The Financial Inclusion Committee will bring together:

• Key stakeholders from the third sector and industry (including trade bodies) to develop, coordinate and implement interventions to support financial inclusion in the UK, and advise the UK Government on the development of its financial inclusion strategy;
• The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA); and
• The Money and Pensions Service (MaPS).

Objectives

The Committee’s objectives are to develop, coordinate and implement interventions to support financial inclusion in the UK, and advise the UK Government on the development of its financial inclusion strategy. 

The Committee will focus on the following areas: 

• Digital inclusion and access to banking services
• Savings
• Insurance
• Affordable credit and problem debt
• Financial education and capability

Across the above areas, the committee will consider cross-cutting themes, including accessibility, mental health, and economic abuse.  

Sub-committees

Sub-committees to be led by committee members on:

• digital inclusion and access to banking;
• access to credit; and
• access to insurance.

These sub-committees will be responsible for developing interventions and prioritising actions on these issues. Over the course of developing their input to the strategy, they will engage with the wider sector and those with lived experience of financial exclusion to ensure the strategy incorporates the views of a wide range of stakeholders. The scope of the strategy, including the work of the sub-committees, is intended to be complementary to other workstreams such as the work of the Motor Insurance Taskforce. 

Members and Chair

The Committee membership will be reviewed on an ongoing basis to ensure it is representative of those able to address financial exclusion and can react to emerging policy priorities. Its members are expected to actively champion financial inclusion in their own organisations and the wider financial services sector, draw on relevant expertise across the sector and lived experience, and may choose to lead coordination of specific priority issues.  

The Committee will be chaired by the Economic Secretary to the Treasury and will hold meetings on a quarterly basis ahead of the publication of a strategy. Sub-Committee meetings on specific issues will be held more frequently. HM Treasury officials will provide the secretariat function of the Committee and will distribute the minutes and actions of each meeting to all Committee members.  

More information

Any public communications on behalf of the Committee will be managed by HM Treasury. 

The Committee will take a UK-wide approach on financial services issues, which are largely a reserved matter, and HM Treasury will work with the Devolved Governments for their input. On some issues which are devolved, such as education policy, the Committee may take an England-only approach where needed. HM Treasury will work closely with relevant departments across Whitehall where issues overlap, such as the Department of Science, Innovation, and Technology (DSIT) on digital inclusion and the Department for Education (DfE) on financial education.  

The future of the Committee will be reviewed upon publication of the financial inclusion strategy.