About
Transact's Aims - What is Financial Inclusion? - What is Financial Exclusion?
Transact is the national forum for financial inclusion, a movement of over 1600 organisations and individuals dedicated to practising and promoting financial inclusion for the benefit of individual people experiencing hardship and poverty as a result of financial exclusion.
Transact was developed to promote best practice, support cohesion across the financial inclusion sector, as well as to raise awareness of the need for the expansion of financial inclusion work within other sectors.
What we do
Information on specific Transact projects and campaigns, past and present, is available to the left.
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Transact acts as a resource for practitioners in the first instance but also facilitates links with policy-makers, influencers, funders, Government, the financial services industry and other associations to support shared thinking and common goals for financial inclusion as well as to proactively promote a diversity of solutions.
Current membership reflects this diversity with members from across the UK, representing organisations including advice agencies, banks, community and voluntary organisations, funders, central and local Government, housing providers, third sector lenders, policy makers, private companies, social enterprises, training and employment agencies and others besides!
Transact’s key objectives are to:
- promote best practice and facilitate cross-sector learning for organisations working towards financial inclusion.
- provide a vehicle for sending and receiving ‘messages’ to and from trade associations, Government, policy makers and implementers, industry and grass roots organisations, to improve the way services develop for financially excluded groups of people.
- bring cohesion to the financial inclusion sector by providing an environment where activities can be more easily co-ordinated by members.
Transact promotes dialogue and common thinking on financial inclusion issues across sectors. As such it differs from traditional trade associations that represent the collective interests of a single group.
There is no one authoritative definition of financial inclusion but Transact defines financial inclusion as:
A state in which all people have access to appropriate, desired financial products and services in order to manage their money effectively. It is achieved by financial literacy and financial capability on the part of the consumer and access on the part of financial product, services and advice suppliers.
Transact defines ‘financial exclusion’ (the opposite to financial inclusion) as:
A state where individuals cannot access the financial products and services that they need.
People experiencing financial exclusion typically exhibit one or more of the following characteristics:
• A lack of key financial products such as a bank account, insurance, savings products and pensions and the financial services that come with them
• A reliance on alternative forms of credit such as doorstep lenders and pawnbrokers
Traditionally, the government has defined the field of financial inclusion and led various initiatives. This has been done in partnership with charities and in particular, charities providing debt advice. Charities have and always will play a key role as they often work directly with people experiencing financial exclusion. Financial services are also key; targeted product development, specialist training of staff and partnership with client facing organisation are just a few of the ways that they work to increase inclusion.
For more information please read Financial Inclusion and Capability Explained - a briefing by Transact and the Resolution Foundation
