Consumer Lenders Editing and Proofreading Services

Consumer lending is a business conducted almost entirely through documents that people read while worried. An application, a decision, an agreement, a schedule of payments, and — for a minority of customers but a majority of the correspondence — arrears letters. The regulatory expectation in most markets has shifted from disclosure to comprehension: it is no longer sufficient that the information was provided, it must have been provided in a way the customer could reasonably act on. That standard is a writing standard, and most lenders are still meeting the old one.

We edit what consumer lenders produce — loan application journeys and pre-contract information, credit agreements and repayment schedules, adverse action and decline notices, affordability and income verification requests, welcome packs and account servicing communications, arrears and default correspondence, financial difficulty and forbearance letters, statements and annual notices, early settlement and refinance explanations, vulnerable customer procedures and staff guidance, complaints correspondence and final response letters, financial promotions and rate advertising, and internal credit policy documents. Our editors check that the cost of borrowing is expressed the same way everywhere it appears, and that letters written to satisfy a regulatory template still communicate to a person.

The decline letter is the most under-edited document in consumer lending, and one of the most consequential. A customer refused credit is left uncertain whether they were assessed as risky, whether they made a mistake on the form, whether a credit file error is to blame, and whether reapplying will make things worse. The standard letter answers none of this, usually because the lender fears saying too much. We rewrite these so the decision is stated immediately, so the customer is told which credit reference agency was used and how to check their file — the single most useful sentence in the letter — so any principal reason that can properly be given is given plainly, and so the customer is told whether and when reapplying is sensible. Lenders who write declines this way receive fewer complaints and, notably, better-quality reapplications from customers who fixed a genuine data problem.

Everything you send is treated in strict confidence, including customer correspondence, credit policies and material in draft. We are editors rather than legal or regulatory advisers, and consumer credit communications must be approved by your compliance function — but we can make them clear, consistent and fair in tone, including for teams working to a template they cannot change.