Caution Your Blast helps FCO send financial aid to Brits stranded abroad

• Digital practice builds applications for the UK government to send interest-free loans to British citizens stranded abroad
• Brits in popular holiday locations such as Thailand and New Zealand can apply
• System built by UK consultancy in less than a week.

London, UK. 22nd May 2020. British citizens stranded abroad during the Covid-19 pandemic can now receive interest-free loans from the Foreign Office to help them arrange travel back to the UK, after digital practice Caution Your Blast built the underlying digital service platform in less than a week.

Brits who were abroad for travel or business in the popular destinations Thailand, New Zealand, Bolivia, and Bangladesh can apply for the loans where their insurance providers and tour operators have failed to provide assistance. This is of vital importance to both the citizens and the UK government, which has been seeking to understand how many UK nationals are currently abroad, which of them requires financial assistance, and how to facilitate this support for potentially unwell or at-risk citizens.

The FCO approached Caution Your Blast to help build a range of quick-turnaround public-facing services for the GOV.UK domain. Caution Your Blast designed, built and implemented a digital service in under 7 days to support the UK government’s efforts during the coronavirus pandemic, with their service focusing on ensuring Brits overseas have access to the funds they need to be able to get through the period of disruption.

Not only was the service delivered in potentially record time, the service also scored extremely well in an independent Government Digital Service review, creating a balance of both speed and high quality for citizens.

The ‘application for coronavirus overseas loan service’ is focussed on helping citizens gain access to finance in the fastest possible way. Working in collaboration with the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, CYB were able to use their skilled team to conceive, design, deliver and continue to improve the service. The service was made available to users in four countries from the 5th of May and is continuing to be rolled out across other major countries following an announcement by the Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, in parliament on Monday 11th May.

Richard Grove, Director of Caution Your Blast, commented: “This new way of working will support the FCO both now and in future, as digital service technology becomes even more critical to the function of government, demonstrated by the way coronavirus has demanded rapid responses and changes to how service delivery works around the globe.”

ENDS

About Caution Your Blast
Caution Your Blast tackles complex digital challenges for organisations such as the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, BT, and the Cabinet Office, as well as start-ups embarking on their digital journey. Caution Your Blast consultants map out what is possible and equip an organisation to be digitally independent, enabling innovation on a more cost-effective scale than traditional IT consultants.

https://www.cautionyourblast.com/

@cybLDN

For media enquiries, contact Ed Clark, eclark@thecommsco.com / 0203 697 6680

Source: RealWire