Anyone applied for an MBNA card recently?

megw

Just weirdly got rejected for MBNA application on 0% purchases card. Never been rejected for credit before in my life, have excellent credit rating/history, only student debt, wondering if it's worth calling them to chase up, or if this is just a COVID thing and they're just not taking new applicants. 

dr_adidas01

Your credit rating means nothing at all, its how your credit accounts are run that matters.  It could also be that you are not the type of customer that MBNA (Lloyds) are looking for.

cymruchris

Nothing really weird about it - you probably didn't fit their credit profile for whatever reason. Only they'll know why you don't. Excellent credit ratings mean nothing - you can have a score of 999 and be turned down, and a score of 500 and be accepted. There are many more factors involved - like how long you've lived where you do, whether you're a home owner, what your history is with credit card utilisation, your existing credit availability, your payment history - whether you always pay in full, or minimum payment, so many different reasons. If you've never been rejected in your life - there's always a first time, and today's your day. As long as your credit files are up to date with no glaring errors, wait a couple of months and try again, or utilise an eligibility checker and look at what other cards are out there. 

cymruchris

megw said:

OK thanks, eligibility checkers were giving me 95% acceptance rate chance for this card and others. Guessing it must be to do with the fact I always pay on time etc. 

Can they reject you because you are too good with money? e.g because they don't think you're the type of customer who will end up paying interest on the purchases, because you will always pay it on time? Is this even a legitimate or allowed reason to reject a customer for credit?

They can reject you for any number of reasons - and we'll never know for sure what those reasons are.

95 percent always sounds good - but think about it - that's 95 people out of every 100 in similar circumstances to you will get a yes - 5 won't. Today you're one of those 5. For every 1000 applications - that's 50 people who won't get an account. As soon as you begin to scale up the numbers - you can see it can affect quite a number of people. 

Don't let it worry you, it'll just be a single search on your credit file - wait a month or two if you can - and see what other offers are out there.