Denied opening bank account

Banking_idiot

Hi,

I have recently tried to open a 123 bank account with santander. However, they told me that after putting in all my details (by phone) that I was denied the right to open a new account.
Does anyone know why this would have been the case?
I am currently with NatWest, haven't got any loans and pay my credit card off on direct debit (and have done so for the past 3 years or so).

Cheers!

ses6jwg

Credit score.

InsideInsurance

Get a copy of your credit report from Experian and see what it says

Credit score, CCJ, CIFAS loadings are the most likely culprits assuming you dont have a bankruptcy, IVA, defaults etc that you do know about but arent mentioning.

MrSilk

Check your credit report

Experian_company_representative

Ordering a copy of your report is sensible. You should also ask Santander to provide a more specific reason for saying no. Industry rules mean they should do this, although you sometimes need to ask. Might not be a credit scoring issue at all of course - it's also possible you've been turned away because of ID checks. They should be able to give you guidance on this.

James Jones

BASFORDLAD

dont waste your money though on paying for experian credit score as the figures mean nothing and are just a marketing swizz

Just get your report through the post for 2.00/2.50?

InsideInsurance

Experian_company_representative wrote: »

. Industry rules mean they should do this

Should or must?

What level of detail must they give you?

Which rules explicitly are you talking about?

Have to say with one exception the only response I've ever really had when pushing credit issuers is that it is a "commercial decision"

JuicyJesus

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Should or must?

What level of detail must they give you?

Which rules explicitly are you talking about?

Have to say with one exception the only response I've ever really had when pushing credit issuers is that it is a "commercial decision"

The problem is that if your information has been put through a credit scoring engine and it has spat out a no, it will be because of a combination of factors and often it is impossible to pick out an actual reason, especially since these credit scoring systems are effectively black boxes which you put information in one end of and get a response out the other.

All the bank can say is "we have criteria, you didn't meet some of these criteria." And they don't have to disclose the criteria, because it is sensitive information (good old application fraudsters...)

InsideInsurance

JuicyJesus wrote: »

All the bank can say is "we have criteria, you didn't meet some of these criteria." And they don't have to disclose the criteria, because it is sensitive information (good old application fraudsters...)

I would correct "can" to "do" but otherwise the above was my understanding but our friend at Experian seems to think otherwise hence the question.

As to it being a big black box, whilst I cannot disprove this as true or not I would be surprised if it is true.

Certainly looking at something similar in insurance rating engines then it is a big black box to the sales guys and they have no access to the calculations.

The normal underwriters however can see some of the intermediary steps/ outputs from the big black box which enables them to make decisions to over rule the black box.

The underwriting managers, pricing managers, commercial directors (in theory) and MD (in theory) etc however have full access and can see exactly the calculations done in each step/ output. It is very rarely used for the purposes of making individual decisions but is used for statistical analysis on rating accuracy, pricing sensitivity, performance etc plus also checking spurious results arent coming out if unexpected sales spikes/ troughs are being witnessed within certain demographics

Obviously credit underwriting is different to insurance underwriting but I'd be highly surprised if a bank has a big black box with nothing coming out of it but a yay or nay