In this blog we provide an update about our innovative FlexMyRent scheme, and report on the challenges being posed by the cost-of-living crisis.

As the cost-of-living crisis deepens, Executive Director, Damon Gibbons, questions whether credit expansion to households is part of the solution, or whether it would be better to extend help to service providers in return for commitments to keep prices down.

Earlier this week, CfRC Director, Damon Gibbons participated in Tech Nation's Finclusion events as a panellist in the 'Products for the People' session arranged by Auden. Drawing on our experience of rent-flex, he argued that it is no longer helpful to think of exclusion in a binary fashion. People are not only excluded or included. They are part of a broad spectrum. Digital services need to start from where the customer is at. There are limitations to the extent to which digital can meet peoples' needs and hand-overs to phone and face-to-face services pose considerable challenges.

Prior to the lockdown, CfRC’s Executive Director, Damon Gibbons, participated in an event run by IFF Research about creative problem solving. His speech identified expenditure demands relative to income at specific points in time as the cause of most financial difficulty. Solutions need to help expenditure flex over time rather than focus on increasing temporary income levels through access to credit.