Lloyds Tsb Block Gambling

Major High Street banks will launch a crackdown on problem gambling this year by allowing customers to switch off spending on betting sites. Lloyds, Santander and Royal Bank of Scotland plan to. Lloyds Banking Group PLC. BLOCK LISTING SIX MONTHLY RETURN. Information provided on this form must be typed or printed electronically and provided to an ris. (Note: Italicised terms have the same meaning as given in the Listing Rules.) Date: 1 July 2019.

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Money and Mental Health welcomes new plans for customer spending controls from more high street banks

04 January 2019

This week a number of major high street banks have revealed plans to give customers new more powers to control spending and manage their finances. Lloyds, Santander and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) have indicated that they will introduce new tools in 2019 to enable customers to block payment on certain types of spending, such as gambling or retail. This follows the introduction of similar measures by Monzo, Starling and Barclays last year.

The Money and Mental Health Policy Institute has been campaigning for financial firms to give customers more tools to control spending since 2017. In response to the new plans reported this week, Helen Undy, Director of Money and Mental Health, said: “These plans for new spending controls – if put in place – could help millions of people across the country to better manage their finances, and to avoid spending or gambling problems. In particular, it could make a big difference for people with mental health problems, who are more at risk of impulsive spending and compulsive behaviour.

“In the past year we’ve seen great progress on this issue, with banks such as Barclays, Monzo and Starling giving their customers more tools to control problem spending. We’re delighted to see this momentum continuing into 2019, and we urge Lloyds, Santander and RBS to act on these plans in the coming months.

“We also hope they will consider how they can make these tools harder to switch on and off, which will make them more effective for customers. That will help many more people across the UK to avoid the devastation that problem spending and gambling can bring.”

ENDS

To find about more the links between mental health problems and gambling visit: www.moneyandmentalhealth.org/gambling/

Contact:

For all media enquiries, please contact Brian Semple, Head of External Affairs, on 0207 848 1448 or brian.semple@moneyandmentalhealth.org

Notes to Editors

About Money and Mental Health Policy Institute

• The Money and Mental Health Policy Institute was set up by Martin Lewis in spring 2016, registered charity number 1166493.
• It conducts research and develops policies for essential services firms, regulators, the health service and government to help people with mental health problems protect themselves from financial difficulties and get out of debt.
• Martin Lewis OBE, Money Saving Expert, is an award-winning campaigning broadcaster, newspaper columnist and author. He founded MoneySavingExpert.com in 2003 for £100 and remains its full-time Editor-in- Chief. It is now the UK’s biggest money site, with more than 14 million monthly users. Martin has his own prime-time ITV programme – The Martin Lewis Money Show – and is resident expert on This Morning, Good Morning Britain and BBC Radio 5 Live’s Consumer Panel, among others.
• Helen Undy is a passionate mental health campaigner and became the Institute’s Director in 2018, having previously led the Institute’s impact and communications work.

Lloyds' letters told borrowers that they would be able to use, 'up to 50% of this [credit] limit for cash withdrawals and cash related transactions such as gambling, the purchase of foreign currency, money orders and gaming chips.'

Many of the credit cardholders they contacted have high credit limits in the thousands.

One recipient of the letter identified by The Daily Mail had been given a high credit limit and encouraged to use it for gambling despite only earning £12,000 a year in his very first job.

Lloyds Bank Block Gambling Transactions

The promotion recalls Barclaycard's decision to encourage cash withdrawals last year, a move widely condemned as irresponsible by consumer groups.

MP outrage

This time, by seeming to promote both borrowing and gambling, state-owned Lloyds has raised the ire of senior Members of Parliament.

Philip Hammond, Tory shadow chief secretary to the Treasury said that he was outraged by the promotion.

'It beggars belief that a bank so heavily reliant on public funds is promoting itself as a provider of credit for gambling habits,' he said.

'Taxpayers who are on the hook for a bailout worth billions of pounds will be horrified.'

Hammond called on Lord Myner, Financial Services Secretary and previously a director at Natwest to warn Lloyds against using similar promotions in the future.

Vince Cable of the Liberal Democrats agreed that action should be taken against Lloyds in this case.

'The senior management who signed this off need to be fired,' Cable said, simply.

'It's quite extraordinary that a publicly owned company is effectively encouraging borrowers to gamble on their credit cards. It is exactly the type of stupid, irresponsible behaviour that has to be stopped.

Cable added that the existing customer promotion was even more breathtaking given that High Street banks have spent so much time explaining why they cannot lend to consumers and businesses who would have once been considered to have good or even excellent credit histories.

Borrowing to gamble

According to the Gambling Commission, 0.6% of the UK's adult population had a gambling problem in 2007, though charities such as GamCare estimate that the proportion is much higher.

Credit card debt is, of course, even more widespread: the average client of the Consumer Credit Counselling Service in 2008, for example, owed around £7,000 on credit cards as well as more money through multiple other forms of debt.

Together, it's clear, gambling and credit cards are likely to be a dangerous combination.

Many credit card providers charge high fees for gambling transactions such as playing the lottery or making transactions within a casino.

Lloyds Tsb Block Gambling Winnings

That's in addition, of course, to the potentially huge losses consumers could incur after borrowing money to pay for a 'safe bet' and being left not only with the bill but with a mountain of interest rate charges if it turns out not to have been so safe after all.