Overview

• Under the Eligibility Verification Measure, banks must share account holder details and indicate if savings or other criteria breach benefit thresholds while transaction records remain off-limits.
• Ministers project issuing between 5,000 and 20,000 direct deduction orders each year to recover overpayments directly from claimants’ earnings or bank accounts.
• The legislation, currently under scrutiny in the House of Lords, is scheduled to take effect in 2026 and aims to save £1.5 billion over five years by tackling fraud and correcting genuine errors early.
• The rollout will start with a limited number of banks and feature independent oversight along with penalties for any disclosures of transaction-level information.
• Civil liberties groups warn the measures risk creating an unprecedented system of mass financial surveillance despite official assurances that safeguards will protect claimant privacy.