Personnel Checks launches financial checks for UK employers

Personnel Checks has launched Adverse Financial Checks for UK employers, reflecting broader demand for more extensive pre-employment screening in higher-risk roles.

As concerns about fraud and insider risk shape recruitment, employers are extending checks beyond criminal records and right-to-work screening. The new search is aimed at roles with access to company finances, payment systems or sensitive information. It is designed to identify serious adverse financial events, including bankruptcies, insolvencies, Individual Voluntary Arrangements and County Court Judgements.

The search does not assess a candidate's credit score. Instead, it uses a soft inquiry to flag significant adverse financial history that an employer may consider as part of a wider screening process.

The launch comes as fraud remains the most common crime category in the UK. Office for National Statistics figures put the number of fraud offences in England and Wales at about 4.2 million in the year to March 2025, while fraud prevention body Cifas estimates the annual cost of fraud to the UK economy at around £219 billion.

Those figures are prompting organisations to revisit the checks used for jobs with financial authority or access to valuable internal systems. According to Personnel Checks, roles in finance, payroll, procurement, compliance, IT and senior leadership are among those where employers are seeking broader due diligence.

Broader screening

Personnel Checks says demand has risen over the past two years from businesses looking to strengthen recruitment controls beyond baseline compliance. Employers are increasingly asking whether standard checks alone provide enough assurance when hiring people who will handle customer funds, company assets or commercially sensitive data.

That shift points to a broader change in how risk and governance functions view recruitment. Rather than treating screening as a narrow legal requirement, some employers are building it into wider efforts to reduce exposure to internal fraud, financial misconduct and operational risk.

Jack Mellor, Chief Executive Officer of Personnel Checks, said: "We're seeing a noticeable shift in how employers think about recruitment risk. Historically, organisations focused on meeting compliance requirements through checks such as right to work and criminal record screening. Increasingly, however, businesses are asking whether they've done everything reasonable to protect their organisation.

"As fraud becomes more sophisticated and governance expectations continue to increase, employers want a more rounded understanding of risk when recruiting into positions of financial responsibility. They're moving away from simply asking, 'Can we recruit this person?' and instead asking, 'Have we taken every reasonable step to protect our business?'

"Adverse Financial Checks isn't about judging someone's credit score or penalising people who have experienced financial difficulties. It provides factual information about serious adverse financial events, allowing employers to make informed, proportionate recruitment decisions where the role justifies that level of screening."

Risk focus

Businesses in banking, insurance, legal services, retail, logistics and the public sector are among those most likely to use enhanced checks for sensitive roles. In these sectors, hiring decisions often sit alongside wider controls on access to funds, systems and confidential information.

Employers are also trying to streamline screening by using a single platform for multiple checks. In practice, that means adverse financial checks can sit alongside identity verification, right-to-work checks, criminal record searches and employment history checks within one process.

Personnel Checks argues that demand is being driven less by single incidents than by a broader preventative approach to corporate risk. As governance teams tighten internal controls, recruiters and hiring managers are being asked to show that they have carried out appropriate due diligence before someone joins the business.

That approach also reflects a shift in the balance between compliance and risk management. For many employers, particularly those in regulated or cash-sensitive sectors, the question is no longer only whether a candidate meets the minimum legal threshold for employment, but whether the organisation has taken proportionate steps to understand potential vulnerabilities linked to the role.

"As organisations continue to strengthen governance and fraud prevention measures, background screening is growing from a compliance exercise into a broader risk management tool, reflecting a growing recognition that recruitment is one of the first opportunities to help protect an organisation from financial crime," said Mellor.