Scots benefits platform INBEST and Tech for Good start-up Lightning Reach will work with Fair4All Finance to broaden their coverage of cost-of-living support for individuals on both platforms.

Over 15 million people in the UK are currently in some form of financial hardship, with the cost-of-living crisis plunging millions more into difficulties.

However, despite there being a vast array of support available, the landscape can be confusing to navigate, resulting in people not knowing what support is available or assuming they are not entitled.

This lack of awareness and the complexity of application processes means struggling households miss out on over £15 billion in benefits, discretionary payments, and grants.

Lightning Reach and Inbest have announced their new partnership that aims to integrate their respective platforms, broadening their combined coverage of cost-of-living support.

This integration will allow Lightning Reach to include benefits, grants and discounted tariffs covered by Inbest in its one-stop support portal, while Inbest will add discretionary schemes and grants available on the Lightning Reach portal to its benefits calculator.

The partnership is being supported by financial inclusion not-for-profit Fair4all Finance which is making the portal available to the community finance sector as part of its programs to expand the provision of affordable credit and the pilot for the No Interest Loan Scheme.

Senthan Balachandiran, Programme Manager at Fair4All Finance, said: “One of the core initiatives in our cost of living response is to make available in as many customer journeys as possible a benefit and grant check because we know that awareness is one of the biggest barriers to claiming entitlement.

“In addition to the No Interest Loan Scheme pilot journey, we are working with credit reference agencies, price comparison websites, loan management systems, and community and mainstream finance to ensure these checks are provided to all their customers.”

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Ren Hooi, CEO of Lightning Reach, said: “With over 8 million people estimated to be missing out on benefits, we are keen to help people seeking support through our portal access all the benefits they are entitled to.

“We’re also delighted to work with Inbest to enable multiple customer journey options for an embedded and seamless experience.”

Manu Peleteiro, CEO of Inbest, added: “The Lightning Reach portal is already one of the most popular features in our benefits calculator.

“Integrating Lightning’s grants engine into our benefits calculator will further increase our leading coverage of benefits and grants and will also create a seamless signposting experience for customers.”

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