Refused by First Direct, any ideas why?

blueste

Hi all

I applied to a First Direct with the intention of taking advantage of the switching deal. My application for an account was refused.

I know that it's impossible to really know why we are refused financial products and services but im not aware of someone with an excellent credit rating (which I have) being refused a bank account before.

Any ideas welcome.....

PeacefulWaters

They're picky.

How many current accounts do you have?

[Deleted User]

Could be a number of reasons.

Income, current debt to income ratio...

Also ignore your credit "rating/score" as it's fictitious

blueste

Ah could be that I have 3

badger09

blueste wrote: »

Ah could be that I have 3

I doubt if its that. I had way more than 3 when I was accepted.

First Direct & HSBC are notoriously choosy who they accept. Don't take it personally. Just move on to another deal;)

Djene

I've been getting rejected by FD for about 5 years now. I'll generally try my chances twice a year or so, and each time I'll get a decline letter through the door.

I've no history or bad credit, £20K+ salary, couple credit cards and a few CA's. They just don't want me as a customer for some reason. I've held a HSBC Current Account a few years ago, which I got no problem. I've held an account with most banks over the years.

They do seem the very picky when it comes to how they accept. But beyond credit history, salary to debt ratio. I've no idea what they choose customers on. Only thing I've noticed over the years, especially when I worked in retail and tendered hundreds of card payments per day, most FD cards were used by those middle aged and beyond. I'm in my mid twenty's. So perhaps age has a small factor.

eskbanker

Djene wrote: »

I've been getting rejected by FD for about 5 years now. I'll generally try my chances twice a year or so, and each time I'll get a decline letter through the door.

Apart from asking the obvious question of why are you so keen to sign up with a bank who clearly don't want your business, this does bring to mind the quote (attributed, possibly erroneously, to Einstein, among others) about defining insanity as doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting different results! After nine rejections, what made you think that they'd suddenly say yes on the tenth?

bigadaj

eskbanker wrote: »

Apart from asking the obvious question of why are you so keen to sign up with a bank who clearly don't want your business, this does bring to mind the quote (attributed, possibly erroneously, to Einstein, among others) about defining insanity as doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting different results! After nine rejections, what made you think that they'd suddenly say yes on the tenth?

I'd adapt a Groucho Marx quote if I was that poster.

enthusiasticsaver

If there is nothing amiss with your credit history and you don't have loads of outstanding debt or not on electoral roll or moved recently I would say you don't fit their preferred customer profile. I was accepted by FD a few years ago and use their current account as my personal spends account. I had about 8 other current accounts, work part time so no huge salary but they accepted me straight away.

Loads of other banks for you to apply to.

forgotmyname

Switched a joint account from Sanatander to FD, all my paperwork arrived no issues but they ask my wife to jump through hoops.

I called and asked why they are asking after we have received the account paperwork. They said its a mistake its actually on hold. But ever few days it got further into the opening process, cards arrived CHQ book arrived etc etc..
Then on the switch day they still wanted more proof it still switched though.

Our logins worked and we opened another savings account and a reg saver without showing extra ID.

zagubov

They are very,very security conscious, and seem very fussy about starting up accounts.

OTOH, their products are quite competitive, and would attract a lot of would-be customers, so maybe they might just be targeting a particular customer profile they're happy with.