Lloyds Bank Gambling Block
A Blueprint for Bank Card Gambling Blockers 3 This report. This report is about the use of debit and credit card technology to block spending on gambling. It is the first UK review of the availability, uptake, and effectiveness of bank card gambling blockers. Lloyds, Santander, and RBS have approved proposals to develop payment-blocking functions that are set to affect transactions made in high street bookmakers and online betting sites and provide greater protections to those who have an issue with compulsive gambling.
- Lloyds Bank Gambling Block Software
- Lloyds Bank Block Gambling Transactions
- Can Lloyds Bank Block Gambling
- Lloyds is now offering offer a gambling block which takes 48 hours to deactivate once it has been turned on. Do we need more friction?
- Since then the likes of Halifax, Lloyds Bank, Bank of Scotland, MBNA, NatWest and HSBC have also introduced gambling blocking features. So far, all the evidence points to these being a much-needed tool. Frean says about 25% of Starling Bank customers have turned on the gambling block.
Three UK high street banks have followed in the footsteps of Barclays in introducing measures to allow customers the ability to restrict certain transactions. Lloyds, Santander and RBS will allow customers to block gambling operator payments.
Three further banks have introduced software to block certain transactions being made. © Pexels.
Barclays pioneered the move in blocking gambling transactions in December last year, allowing the customer to control and block particular payments via mobile applications. Three more UK high street banks, Lloyds, Santander, and RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) have now followed suit. They have approved a proposal to develop payment-blocking functions that will affect transactions made in high street bookmakers as well as online betting sites.
Barclays was the first to make these changes when they announced a plan to integrate a ‘gambling block’ component across its customer-facing digital platforms. The main aim of this bold step is to protect clients, especially those who have any issues with compulsive gambling. The new changes are simply an upgrade to the mobile banking apps and will give customers control over when and where money can be spent.
RBS is one of the biggest banks in Europe with a customer base of about 30 million, Lloyds has approximately 22 million customers and Santander has a client base of about 14 million. Customers of these three banks join the 24 million Barclays customers who already have access to this facility.
The new gambling-block feature allows the customers to turn off engagements with any product related to gambling. Furthermore, the ability to block transactions is not just limited to gambling, with customers also able to prevent other transactions. These come under four subsections, which are petrol stations, premium websites and phone lines, food and drink purchases and supermarkets.
The customer will also have the ability to manage and limit withdrawals from cashpoints, in-store and online purchases, and credit card purchases.
A spokesman for Lloyds said that they have a plan to enhance customer engagement by improving their communications to regularly inform the users on their gambling expenditure over a specified period of time. He said:
Throughout 2019 we will be enhancing our customer communications so customers are informed and alerted to their gambling spend, as well as introducing tools to improve self-service options such as gambling restrictions.–Statement Lloyds Bank
Lloyds Bank Gambling Block Software
The move by Barclays last year to empower customers has forced other banks to follow suit and has been widely welcomed by harm reduction agencies. It is likely to be rolled out by other key players in the financial markets.
Charity GambleAware is pleased that the high street banks are offering these facilities. He said that his organisation was fully behind the initiative and that the blocking functions will help the more than 340,000 compulsive gamblers in Britain. He believes a further 1.7 million are at the risk of falling to the same fate. He further added that such initiatives play an important role in reducing if not stopping gambling related effects and harm.
Lloyds Bank Block Gambling Transactions
Gambling blocking software maker Gamban has secured a partnership with Lloyds Banking Group. As part of the arrangement, customers of the Group will have access to Gamban’s software which prevents payments for gambling-related products or services.
Gamban Agrees on Lloyds Banking Group Deal © Pixabay.
Gamban confirmed integration to Lloyds Banking Group platform had already been completed, and said demand for the product was high with a “significant number” of users have already signed up for the service.
Lloyds’s Group customers, which include Bank of Scotland and Halifax as well as Lloyds bank, have access to the Gamban software as well as the company’s own ‘Lloyds Banking Group Gambling Transaction Freezes’. Customers can access their mobile banking app and totally prohibit gambling or set maximum monthly amounts if they wish to control their spending.
The founder of Gamban, Jack Symons, paid tribute to the banking giant for having the foresight to enter into an agreement that can protect vulnerable customers. He said:
It’s very positive to see forward-thinking banking institutions such as Lloyds Banking Group rise to the challenge of protecting vulnerable customers from gambling addiction through barriers such as spend control and collaboration with market-leading gambling-blocking technology, Gamban.– Jack Symons, Gamban founder.
In a statement on the agreement, Elyn Corfield, Managing Director, Consumer Finance, Lloyds Banking Group said the bank understood that gambling-related harm can have serious and long-term impacts on their customers and was committed to enabling a range of support measures to help them. Corfield said the partnership with Gamban, which would give customers three months free access to the software, would complement the company’s own harm prevention measures.
Gamban, who is based in Southampton, has enjoyed huge success with their software that can be used on various operating systems as well as mobile devices. The software has been used in GambleAware’s suite of treatment tools since October 2018.
The banking sector, like the gambling sector, has been increasingly subject to regulatory and public pressure to increase social responsibility efforts. Banks are increasingly expected to show a duty of care towards vulnerable customers. Stakeholders in both industries have been encouraged by regulators to work together to find solutions.
Can Lloyds Bank Block Gambling
Collaboration between banks and gambling companies may become much more common if affordability checks are introduced. Mentioned in the All-Party Group on Gambling Related Harm interim report, the Group said that improved affordability checks are urgently needed.
The Group said there are no stake and spend limits for players when gambling online and added that it is simply not good enough for the online operators to say they are ‘developing affordability checks’.
The reportsaid operators should have a clear understanding of what is affordable to online users and this should be calculated on a proportion of a gambler’s income, something the operators would need help from financial institutions to set this limit.