PayPlan, one of the UK’s largest debt advice organisations, is trialling the MorganAsh Resilience System (MARS) to better identify and assess vulnerable customers.

Following a successful trial, the platform will be rolled out to enhance PayPlan’s service offering. MARS’s objective and consistent customer vulnerability assessment will enable both staff and agents to gain a full and detailed understanding of each customer’s vulnerability and its severity. This information will not only help to improve service and support decision making, but also contribute to management information for reporting purposes.

Furthermore, the MARS platform will also trigger recommendations to the team for suitable next steps when vulnerability is discovered – MARS refers to these as ‘treatments’.

The move will support PayPlan’s important work in providing clear, honest advice and debt solutions to help people become debt free. Through its range of services, PayPlan helps more than 100,000 people per year with their finances. Since its launch more than 30 years ago, PayPlan has helped over one million people become debt-free.

MorganAsh launched its award-winning MARS platform to help firms understand and monitor vulnerable customers and deliver good outcomes – as required by Consumer Duty. It is in use across financial services and the utilities sector, enabling businesses to adopt a consistent approach to identifying vulnerable characteristics and generate an objective Resilience Rating – much like a credit score.

As part of the new partnership, PayPlan’s debt advice service will be included within MARS as a support service, enabling MARS users to refer their vulnerable customers with debt issues to PayPlan for free debt advice.

Emma Gibbons, Vulnerability Lead at PayPlan, said: “With 53% of all PayPlan clients disclosing a vulnerability, it’s really important that those seeking help with debt receive compassionate support and advice that is tailored to their needs and circumstances.

“We’ve made tremendous progress at PayPlan in providing dedicated support to vulnerable clients and helping them to write off considerable amounts of debt through our dedicated Vulnerable Client Team. Integrating MARS is an exciting step in our journey to help us to build a complete picture of each client at outset and through their debt journey, as well as to report accurately on our findings. We’re thrilled to partner with MorganAsh for this project.”

Andrew Gething, Managing Director of MorganAsh, added: “PayPlan has a proven track record in supporting people out of debt and their proactiveness on consumer vulnerability is respected throughout the industry. Given that we are so closely aligned in our ethos and our values, we couldn’t be more proud to see PayPlan use our award-winning MARS platform.

“Since its launch, MARS has enabled businesses to identify and assess vulnerability in an objective and consistent way. Good data is a cornerstone of managing consumer vulnerability and absolutely critical in meeting the reporting requirements of regulators. Having greater intelligence enables us to deliver a far better and more tailored service to clients, something PayPlan and all our users will absolutely benefit from.”

To find out more or access a free trial, visit: morganash.com/mars or phone: 0330 159 8162. For more information about PayPlan, visit: https://www.payplan.com/debtsupport or freephone: 0800 072 1206

If you or someone you know is experiencing financial difficulties, you can contact PayPlan on 0800 316 1833. We’re open from 8am to 8pm Monday-Friday and 9am to 3pm on Saturdays. You can also visit our website to chat with us digitally or for further information.