Domestic violence leaves financial scars: study of 5,400 survivors finds savings fall, debt rises

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Domestic violence is often associated with physical harm — bruises and injuries — but "financial abuse," in which an abuser controls household money, monitors bank accounts or takes out debt in a victim's name, is also a recognized form of domestic violence.

A study that examined seven years of banking records for women who experienced domestic violence found that survivors had lower savings, higher debt and worse credit scores than comparable women, and spent less on self-care such as dental visits and exercise.

Financial abuse often begins early in a relationship, and it preceded other forms of domestic violence in roughly a third of cases in Britain. "Financial abuse leaves no marks on the body, but it leaves clear and measurable traces in financial records," the research team wrote in the paper.

The findings were published in the journal Nature by a team led by Anna Trendl of Lloyds Banking Group and Nicola Sharp-Jeffs of London Metropolitan University.

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Survivors' savings shrink, debt grows

The research team analyzed transaction records for 5,428 women who disclosed domestic violence or financial abuse to a dedicated support team at Lloyds Banking Group — Britain's largest bank — between 2020 and 2024.

The team compared the survivors' seven years of banking data against records for 15,602 other female customers matched by age, income and place of residence.

According to the research team, survivors held 3,501 pounds less in savings than the comparison group and scored 109 points lower on credit ratings. The share of survivors with at least one missed direct debit was 31.9 percentage points higher, and the share using an overdraft was 34.6 percentage points higher. The share receiving welfare benefits was also 28.4 percentage points higher.

Compared with the bank's overall customer base, 63 percent of survivors had missed at least one direct debit payment, against 17 percent of all customers. Their average credit score was 767, below the overall customer average of 960, and their average savings balance of 3,088 pounds was less than a quarter of the overall customer average of 14,215 pounds.

The research team suggested that survivors' rising debt levels partly reflected an increased need to borrow.

Less spending on dental care and exercise; more on taxis and legal fees

Survivors were 8.8 percentage points less likely than the comparison group to spend on dental care, and 5.3 percentage points less likely to spend on exercise. The researchers attributed this to financial control by abusers — either restricting spending or taking money directly.

Survivors were 12.3 percentage points more likely to spend on taxis but 5.5 percentage points less likely to spend on commuting. The team interpreted this as reflecting lower employment rates among survivors and greater reliance on taxis for safety reasons. Survivors were also 5.9 percentage points more likely to incur legal costs, which the researchers linked to efforts to separate legally from abusers or obtain protective orders.

However, when survivors were compared with women experiencing similar levels of financial hardship, most of the differences in dental, exercise and taxi spending largely disappeared.

The research team noted that some patterns observed may not be unique to financial abuse survivors but could reflect circumstances common to women in financial difficulty more broadly.

Survivors also showed higher rates of password resets, reports of lost or stolen cards, and address changes, and made greater use of branch visits and telephone banking. The team interpreted these as signs of abusers attempting to control accounts, or of survivors trying to reclaim their accounts after leaving a relationship.

The researchers cautioned that because the study covered only women who had reported abuse to the bank, the sample likely skewed toward more severe cases and those in greater financial hardship. The banking records also contained no information on when abuse began, making it impossible to determine at what stage these financial changes emerged or to establish a causal link between financial abuse and the observed outcomes.

Reference

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-11049-7

Trendl, A., Sharp-Jeffs, N., Perrier, K. et al. Banking records reveal characteristics of financial abuse. Nature (2026).

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