The Financial Ombudsman Service has warned UK lenders it is "essential" to prioritise the needs of customers "struggling with unmanageable levels of debt" in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

The UK body, which resolves individual complaints between financial businesses and their customers, said today that it had heard from "tens of thousands of people" struggling to repay their debts before the Covid-19 outbreak, but it expected the virus to exacerbate the problem.