Skip to content
  • There are no suggestions because the search field is empty.

What is the difference between contextual and financial data?

Understanding the different types of data in the Economic Wellbeing Explorer

The Economic Wellbeing Explorer combines two types of data to help you better understand local financial wellbeing: 

Financial Data 

Definition: Financial data reflects anonymised, aggregated patterns in current account transactions, providing an indication of financial resilience, income, and spending behaviour. 

Key Characteristics: 

  • Derived from anonymised data across 5 million consumer bank accounts, dating back to November 2023. 
  • Data is updated monthly and is available at a weekly level of detail. 
  • Includes indicators such as: 
    • People with Low Emergency Resilience 
      This variable is an aggregate measure of the preceding 5 weeks. It is created by representing low emergency resilience as 2 or more balance events below a threshold of £100; counting the proportion of accounts that exceed this threshold. 
    • People Living Beyond Means 
      This variable is an aggregate measure of the preceding 13 weeks. It is created by: summing the credits and summing the debits per account; counting the proportion of accounts where debit exceeds 120 % of credit. 
    • People with overdrawn accounts 
      This variable is an aggregate measure of the preceding 5 weeks. It is created by representing persistently overdrawn accounts as 2 or more negative balance events; counting the proportion of accounts that exceed this threshold. 

Filtering: 
You can filter financial data by: 

  • Date  
  • Age group 
  • Income group 

These filters let you explore different population segments in more detail. 

Contextual Data 

Definition: Contextual data provides background and demographic information about the area. 

Key Characteristics: 

  • Sourced from open data (such as the Census, SIMD, and government statistics). 
  • Describes the environment in which financial behaviours occur (e.g., housing size, deprivation, health metrics). 
  • Used primarily to add context to the financial indicators—for example, to see whether areas with higher deprivation also have higher overdrawn accounts. 

Tip: 

When you select indicators: 

  • Financial data affects the circle size on the map. 
  • Contextual data affects the circle colour. 

This helps you see both types of information side by side. 

For more information about data sources, you can also view the Resources tab within the dashboard.