2 days Ago By Vicky Shaw
Lloyds Bank has launched a new feature in its app to help customers identify benefits and other financial support they may be eligible to claim, such as council tax discounts, energy grants, winter fuel payments and pension credit. The bank said the calculator has already helped thousands of people to seek support that they may be entitled to, since it started testing the tool a few weeks ago. The calculator asks customers some initial questions about themselves, including their household income, number of children and their living situation.
Based on the responses, it then gives an initial estimate of the amount of benefits the customer may potentially be eligible for. Customers can then use an in-depth calculator and a final summary is provided, with links for making a claim to relevant sites, such as Government websites. Lloyds said that so far, the most common benefits and discounts identified by the tool include universal credit, council tax discounts and child benefit.
The calculator is also available to customers of Halifax and Bank of Scotland, which are part of the same banking group. Tamara van den Ban, customer propositions director at Lloyds, said: “Billions of pounds of support is provided for those who need it through benefits, but many customers don’t know how to navigate the system or how to make a claim.” The bank said the information provided by customers when using the benefit calculator is only used to calculate the benefits customers are eligible for and is not used or shared elsewhere.
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