Starling - Removal of Overdraft Option

nadnerbsregdor1993

Hi, when I first created a Starling account in 2018 I was offered a small overdraft of £50. I had this enabled for a few months but never needed it so I removed the overdraft from my account in the Overdraft section of the app settings. 

This led to "Overdraft available up to £50" message to appear below my account balance. 

I noticed early this month (Sep 2023) that this text disappeared from under my account balance and when I click Overdraft in the app settings it says "Sorry, you can't make an overdraft request at the moment". 

I don't need the overdraft or the option to have the overdraft but I was just curious why Starling may've randomly removed this option from my account? The account only has around £5-20 per month paid into it as I only use it to pay a few subscriptions with only around £10 per month being spent from the account. Would this maybe be the reason for removal? 

I also recently had a credit card application accepted with £4,000 credit limit bringing my total amount of credit available to £7,000, would this maybe be a factor in the removal of the Overdraft option as well? 

I contacted Starling CS and they responded to say they have passed the query to their Lending team to let me know why the option was removed but 3 days later no reply yet. 

Thanks

mab3000

Starling like other lenders are tightening their belts and not offering as much credit due to the current economic climate and bad debts. They are looking to reduce their exposure to this. 

The fact that the account has little turnover could be a factor, might be seen as too risky to them to offer an overdraft on an account that has minimal inflows, and they wouldn’t be able to see your financial situation from very few transactions.  Your new credit card could also be a factor as you have higher exposure to credit which could be seen as a risk to Starling - they may deem offering you an overdraft being unaffordable for you. 

Then again it could be neither of these things, you might just not fit Starlings lending criteria for other reasons which would be confidential to the bank. 

You are unlikely to get a reason from them why you are being denied an overdraft from them other than a standard ‘not fitting lending criteria’ message. 

Cashmygiro

I use Starling as my main bank. I requested an overdraft once just to see what they would offer me and they came back offering £500 at 15%. I didn't take up the offer and the offer was withdrawn and removed from my screen after 14 days as it said it would. I don't need an overdraft.

nadnerbsregdor1993

Thanks mab3000 and Cashmygiro.

I've also noticed Starling recently takes a while to update my account status in my Credit Reports via Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. I asked about this as well as all my other accounts tend to update quickly. Starling CS stated to me they can report to the CRAs at different times each month, so I guess it is just a coincidence that the overdraft disappears and the account status is slow to update via the CRAs. I'll keep checking to see when the account status updates to see if it is indeed random. 

Thanks again for your replies. It's much appreciated. 

Cashmygiro

I don't think my Starling credit entry updates every month neither.