DWP Universal Credit bank checks under Eligibility Verification Measure, Digi Mart USA News (United Kingdom): The Department for Work and Pensions has confirmed the launch of a sweeping new Universal Credit power, after claimants were warned by civil liberties groups. The DWP has announced that its new Eligibility Verification Measure is now officially in force.
In a statement delivered on 26 October 2026, Lilian Greenwood, Labour’s Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Innovation, Fraud and Data), confirmed the powers had come into effect. The Labour MP for Nottingham South told the Commons that the DWP had issued its first Eligibility Verification Notice under powers introduced by the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Act 2025.
Under the new legislation, banks will be required to flag claimants suspected of fraud or those who may have received overpayments in error. The rules initially apply to Universal Credit, Employment and Support Allowance and Pension Credit.
Ms Greenwood said: “This marks an important step in the Department’s use of data to assist with identifying and preventing fraud and error, correcting inaccurate benefit payments sooner and helping prevent avoidable debt.” She added that the Eligibility Verification Measure is expected to save the taxpayer £1.2 billion over the next five years.
Eligibility Verification Notices require banks and other financial institutions to check relevant accounts receiving specified benefit payments against eligibility indicators. These indicators are criteria that can help the DWP identify whether a specified benefit is, or has been, paid incorrectly, having regard to the benefit rules relating to a person’s capital or time spent abroad.
Limited information is returned only where an account meets an eligibility indicator, indicating that a payment may be incorrect.
Ms Greenwood stressed that the information received will act only as a prompt for further checks. Information received through the measure will not, in isolation, imply that a person is guilty of any wrongdoing or that their benefit entitlement will change.
Decisions will continue to be made by trained Departmental staff through established processes.
Implementation will begin through a controlled test-and-learn phase so that systems, data quality, operational impacts and customer outcomes can be assessed before the measure is scaled up. The legislation sets out the benefits in scope, the purpose of the power and the type of information that can and cannot be shared, including a prohibition on financial institutions sharing transaction information or special category data, except for information indicating that an account is in receipt of a specified benefit.
The Department will exercise these powers in accordance with the legislation and the statutory Code of Practice, published on GOV.UK in May 2026. Independent oversight will be provided by an Independent Reviewer, appointed through an open, fair and transparent process, who will annually review the Department’s use of the power and produce reports to be laid in Parliament.
Ms Greenwood said the measure forms part of the Department’s broader response to fraud and error, which she said has already saved £27 billion in 2025-26 using preventative frontline controls and detection by counter fraud teams.
