Liza Vizard

Liza Vizard was appointed to the new post of head of CSR and public affairs at HBOS bank in 2005. 'Vizard, who was previously head of corporate responsibility at Prudential, will oversee a review of the four-person CSR and public affairs department.' [1]

Responsibility and spin - the same thing?

Vizard appears to be responsible for lobbying, spin and corporate responsibility:

Martin Batt, corporate responsibility manager at UK Bank HBOS, is leaving to join consultancy The Virtuous Circle. His particular focus is on environmental issues and climate change, but he will provide a full corporate responsibility advisory service. At HBOS Batt will be replaced by Liza Vizard, who steps into the new role of head of corporate responsibility and public affairs, adding government relations to the brief.[2]

The HBOS CR team reports to Shane O'Riordain, General Manager, Group Communications. The recently appointed Head of CR and Public Affairs, Liza Vizard, is a member of the HBOS Forum, the 700 most senior managers in the company. The CR team supports Phil Hodkinson and the 17 members of the Corporate Responsibility Forum, and works with a range of CR practitioners to help implement The Way We Do Business across the HBOS Group.[3]

FSA advisor

Vizard sat on the FSA's Financial Capability Working Group on Young Adults while head of Corporate Responsibility at Prudential [4]

Financial literacy is a key issue - as opposed to corporate misdeeds

Liza Vizard, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at Prudential, said:

“The appointment of Howard Gannaway is an important step as we move towards a greater understanding of the needs of adult learners. Tackling head on the issue of financial literacy in the UK is of key importance for all organisations involved with the financial affairs of consumers.”[5]

Debt watchdog asked if the Prudential was 'Profiting from Poverty?...' by refusing to sell its shares in the company which owns shoppacheck:

Debt on our Doorstep can reveal that Prudential, one of the U.K's leading pension providers, and owners of Egg, one of the new breed of low cost, internet based financial service companies, is directly profiting from investment in door to door lending companies Provident and Shoppacheck.

Prudential also seems unable to recognise the poor deal that licensed money lenders offer, despite backing financial literacy campaigns through the Personal Finance Education Group and having a clear policy on "socially responsible investment". In reply to correspondence from Debt on our Doorstep, M&G (Prudential's fund management company) stated that "Following... discussion and a review of information from Provident Financial and the Consumer Credit Association, we believe that APRs can become artificially distorted depending on the form of credit and time frame of the loan. Based on our ongoing analysis of the company, we are confident that Provident Financial meets our SRI policy."

However, the calculation of APR's to one side, it is clear that Provident's rates are high. Their own website reveals that they lent an average of £564 to each of their 1.6 million customers last year. But they collected an average of £795 - a mark up of 40% per customer in the year, after allowing for bad debts.

It is a major concern that Prudential, which is contributing to the development of financial literacy resources in the UK cannot see this for the bad deal it is. And, in terms of the effects on communities you only need to look at the survey conducted by Debt on our Doorstep into borrowing on the Meadowell estate (see "Money ripped out of estates" below).

We have written to Prudential asking them to reconsider, but in the meantime we are asking supporters to contact Liza Vizard , Prudential's Head of Corporate Responsibility directly to ask that they sell their investment in Provident and Cattles plc (owners of shoppacheck). ^[6]

References

1. ^ Debt on our doorstep, 'Prudential - Profiting from Poverty?...' News 17th March 2003