Lowell and MyBnk team up to break the debt stigma among young people

This Debt Awareness Week, Lowell is partnering with financial education charity MyBnk to challenge the stigma around debt and help young people build healthy money habits.

Together, Lowell and MyBnk are aiming to equip young people with the tools and confidence to talk about money and navigate debt – including understanding how to engage with debt collection companies. They have developed a series of accessible resources to support young people’s understanding of dealing with debt, including:

• A guide to priority debts – what they are and how to deal with them.
• A debt jargon ‘buster’ – demystifying commonly used terms like APR, fixed vs. variable rates and credit scores.
• A practical checklist – to help callers feel prepared when speaking to an adviser about their debt.
• Live call examples – short videos talking young people through a typical call with Lowell

John Pears, UK CEO at Lowell, said: “Engaging with your debt is the most important step, but for many people, it’s also the most difficult.

“In this country, talking about money – especially debt – still carries a huge stigma. We want to change that, starting with young people. If we can help them build the skills and confidence to have honest conversations about money now, we can help prevent problem debt later in life.

“This isn’t just about Debt Awareness Week. As an industry, we have a responsibility to make debt feel less frightening and more manageable.”

Leon Ward, MyBnk CEO, said: “Education around finances, saving and debt is crucial to make sure people have the tools they need to form a healthy relationship with money. We need to stop stigmatising debt, and money in general, and start talking about how to prevent and overcome it. Understanding how money works is empowering, and this begins with education and open conversations.”

Lowell is committed to tackling the barriers preventing people from achieving better financial health. Drawing on the conversations we have with our 8.5 million UK customers, we are campaigning for key policy reforms that we believe will have a massive impact on people individually, but also support the Government in addressing the long and stubborn tail of financial vulnerability in the UK.

To access the full set of resources or for more information on our Fairer Debt for a Fairer Society campaign, click the link.