MALG Conference 2026 Session Synopses
Also see the Programme, Speakers and Sponsors & Exhibitors or go back to the main conference page.
Session synopses are draft and subject to change as plans develop but titles/topics will now remain the same.
Keynote Speaker: Claire McColgan CBE, Liverpool City Council (sponsored by Bristow & Sutor)
Claire will be drawing on her experience as Director of Culture, Major Events & Tourism at Liverpool City Council to take about ‘The Power of Place’ and how culture and collaboration can drive systemic change.
Regulatory Keynote: ‘Fireside Chat’ with Alison Walters, Financial Conduct Authority
A Q&A with the FCA’s Director of Consumer Finance, Supervision, Policy & Competition.
Breakout 1a: From Confusion to Crisis: Tackling Miscommunication to Prevent Consumer Harm
Miscommunication is one of the biggest drivers of consumer harm in the UK debt landscape from misunderstandings about repayment options, to lack of awareness about support available, to mixed messages about the collections and enforcement process. When people don’t know who to trust or what to believe, confusion quickly escalates into crisis.
This cross‑sector panel brings together voices from across the inter‑connected UK debt ecosystem including money advice, debt recovery, financial education, taxation and utilities. Together, they will explore how conflicting information spreads, why communication breaks down, and what practical steps organisations can take to rebuild clarity, consistency, and trust.
Breakout 1b: The Future of Credit Information: Better Data for Better Life Chances (sponsored by Experian)
Credit information shapes far more than access to borrowing; it influences housing prospects, financial stability, and long‑term life chances. As the UK moves toward a more data‑driven financial system, the sector faces a pivotal question: how do we build credit information frameworks that genuinely improve outcomes for people, not just processes for organisations?
This session will explore how better data quality, governance, and transparency can support fairer decisions, reduce exclusion, and strengthen consumer resilience. The discussion will examine emerging reforms, the role of public interest data, and how industry, regulators, and consumer bodies can collaborate to ensure credit information works in service of people’s life chances.
Expect a forward‑looking conversation on innovation, accountability, and the practical steps needed to build a credit ecosystem that is accurate, inclusive, and fit for the future.
When Difference Costs More: Tackling the Structural Premium on Marginalised Groups
Across the UK, people from marginalised communities routinely face a “structural premium”, paying more for essential services, experiencing greater barriers to support, and being exposed to higher levels of financial and personal harm. These costs aren’t accidental; they are baked into systems, processes, and assumptions that fail to account for difference.
This session brings together leading voices working to dismantle those inequities. The discussion will explore how ethnicity, disability, poverty, and other lived experiences of marginalisation intersect with structural disadvantage and how organisations can redesign services to remove the premium altogether.
Expect a candid, evidence‑driven conversation about the real‑world impact of systemic bias, the reforms needed across essential services and debt‑related sectors, and the collaborative action required to ensure that difference never results in higher costs or greater harm.
Breakout 2a: Regulation Reset: Creating a Credit Market that Works for All
The UK credit landscape is on the brink of its most significant overhaul in decades. With reforms spanning legislation, regulation, redress, and consumer protections, the sector faces a rare moment to redesign the credit market so it delivers fair, consistent, and sustainable outcomes for everyone.
This session explores the full sweep of the Regulation Reset: the forthcoming reform of the Consumer Credit Act and the new Financial Services Bill, including changes to customer information requirements; the regulation of Buy Now Pay Later; proposed reforms to the Financial Ombudsman Service and the future of mass redress; the review of Financial Promotions and the role of APR; and the wider package of FCA‑led remedies across credit markets. All of this sits within the ongoing implementation of the Consumer Duty, which is reshaping expectations for firms across the ecosystem.
Bringing together experts from policy, regulation, consumer advocacy, and industry, this session will examine what these reforms mean in practice, where the biggest opportunities lie, and how the sector can work collectively to build a credit market that genuinely works for all.
Breakout 2b: MALG Members Friday Forum LIVE (sponsored by PRA Group)
Take part in this in-person version of the virtual MALG Friday Forum, which was launched at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic to enable ‘working together to improve the lives of people in debt’ during lockdown, and is still going strong today. With no formal agenda or speakers, the floor will be open for group discussion, challenging questions, and joint solutions. ‘Raise your hand’, don’t ‘go on mute’ and get ‘in the chat’ in this interactive session!
Using AI & Tech to Widen Access to Debt Advice for the Most Excluded Groups (sponsored by Wyser)
For many people, access to debt advice is shaped not by need, but by barriers – digital, cultural, linguistic, physical, or institutional. This session explores how AI, technology and practical hardware solutions can be used to widen access for those who are currently the least able to reach support, and for whom the consequences of exclusion are often the most severe.
The panel will examine real‑world challenges faced by groups including prisoners, cancer patients, the deaf community, people who speak foreign languages, those experiencing digital exclusion, and others where local authorities often rely on specialist outreach teams. It will also consider how lived experience should shape design, and how any new tools must be built with sensitivity to the realities of exclusion, from limited connectivity and device access, to trauma, stigma, and mistrust of official systems.
Panellists will discuss how AI‑enabled tools, translation technologies, accessible interfaces, and low‑cost hardware can be deployed safely and effectively; how to avoid deepening existing inequalities; and how to ensure that innovation genuinely expands reach rather than simply improving efficiency for those already well‑served.