Economic abuse of women is all-too-common - I know from personal experience: Sarah Coles

We wanted to improve awareness among our colleagues and help people going through something similar, so we ran a workshop talking about what abuse had looked like within our relationships. When we emerged the other side, we were inundated with messages from people who had either been through something similar, or were worried about a friend. It was a salient reminder of how shockingly common this is, and how important it is for everyone to talk about – so victims get the support they need.

I’ve mentioned my experiences of economic abuse before in this column, so I won’t dwell on them. However, it happened to me around 16 years ago, when I was with the father of my children. In the early days there was no sign of any controlling behaviour around money. There was the odd comment about my spending, but not enough to ring alarm bells.

By the time the relationship ended, it had escalated horribly, so I had my spending utterly controlled by his rules and whims. I couldn’t buy new clothes for myself or the children, or new toys. And if I broke the rules, I would be punished by him refusing to speak to me and leaving the flat for long periods of time – sometimes with the children. Meanwhile, he spent freely on designer clothes and generous gifts for his friends. At the same time, he controlled my work. He gave up his job just after the birth of my daughter, out of the blue, and told me I couldn’t have more than a few days of maternity leave. Because we had a big mortgage, I ended up working three jobs to make ends meet, and with both children in childcare, he did nothing to help.

It's easy to look at this kind of thing from the outside and wonder how on earth things can get so bad, or why the victim didn’t do something about it straight away, but the nature of how it built meant I was spending every second trying to protect myself and my children from it. I had very little energy left to take a step back and see the reality of the situation.

This is just my own experience, and economic and financial abuse comes in several forms. It can mean stealing your money or running up debts in your name. Some abusers will insist you hand over all your salary and give you too little money to live off – sometimes insisting on seeing receipts for every expense. Some will deny you any information about the household finances, so you have no idea how much trouble you are in. Some will destroy your belongings or control your use of your property – like a mobile phone or car. The feature all these things share is that the abuser uses coercive and controlling behaviour to damage their victim using their finances. It can trap victims with their abuser, because they feel that if they leave, even more financial damage will be done, and they can never rebuild their lives.

Worryingly, this kind of abuse is far more common than you would think. New figures from the charity, Surviving Economic Abuse, found that one in six women in Yorkshire and The Humber have been a victim of economic abuse in the past year. One in 11 have had access to their bank account restricted by a current or ex-partner, while one in nine have been stopped from accessing vital and personal belongings such as food, shampoo, or even medication. One in 13 women have had credit taken out in their name without their consent, or their credit rating deliberately destroyed.

The woman I spoke with had been a victim of abuse not once but twice. The first was domestic abuse so violent she feared for her life and for her children. Her story was incredibly moving and shocking, including the time she was threatened with a knife for having bought the wrong thing at the supermarket. The second time she was a victim, it was coercive control, emotional and financial abuse. One point she was keen to make was that the violence she went through was unspeakably traumatic, but the emotional and financial abuse was also utterly devastating.

It’s a fairly dark subject, but there is some hope. Since originally telling my story last year, I was asked to a meeting at the Treasury with other financial organisations, to discuss what is being done to help survivors, and there is some impressive work going on behind the scenes.

Lots of the high street banks offer ‘safe spaces’ for people experiencing domestic abuse, where you can go into your branch and have somewhere private to make phone calls and reach out for help. A huge number of companies have also had training from Surviving Economic Abuse for the teams who help vulnerable clients, and the charity has a directory on its website with contacts for specialist teams. But it doesn’t stop there: some banks, including TSB, have a ‘flee fund’, which is a grant of money to help you do things like find a place to stay.

One in three people who have been a victim of financial abuse didn’t reach out to anyone for advice or support, but 's vital to know that if you’re going through this there is help out there. My colleague eventually got help getting away from her violent partner from the police. But we agreed that talking to friends and family is key too. We both had friends we couldn’t ask for help because they were a close friend of our partner, and for some people this will rule an awful lot of people out. If you have nobody, there are charities who can step in, from Surviving Economic Abuse to Refuge, and local specialists.

Because as we found this week, while any kind of domestic abuse is terrible, it can make an awful lot of difference to know you don’t have to go through it alone.

FCA review of savings

The FCA savings review in July this year – plus a fair bit of pressure from MPs – finally persuaded the high street giants to shift off their rock bottom rates.

After the review, savings rates rose further than the Bank of England base rate – and faster than we'd seen before. The report was followed by a 0.25% Bank of England base rate rise in August. Since then, the average easy access account has risen 0.33 percentage points (to 1.99%), and the average fixed term rate is up 0.58 percentage points (to 3.52%).

However, while that’s some relief for people holding accounts paying miserable rates, they still fall way short of the best on the market. You can do far better by moving to a more competitive account. These are usually available from smaller and newer banks and cash savings platforms, where your money will work much harder. Vast swathes of the easy access market is offering more than 3% on easy access at the moment, and the best on the market are offering more than 5%, so it pays to vote with your feet.