Not upheld: failure to identify and intervene in problem gambling; irresponsible lending/account management complaint against HSBC UK Bank Plc

Decision detail

Summary

Mr H complained that HSBC failed to identify and intervene in response to escalating gambling-related spending on his account between 21 May 2025 and 3 June 2025. HSBC did not uphold the complaint, stating that customers must disclose gambling problems for support to be offered, and that there was insufficient evidence of financial difficulties to warrant proactive intervention. The ombudsman agreed, finding that while the account showed high gambling activity, the transactions were not unusual given the account appeared to be used largely for gambling, Mr H regularly maintained a credit balance, and the first sign of financial difficulty (overdraft on 6 June 2025) occurred after he had already stopped gambling. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that while banks must have systems to identify customers with spending problems, account monitoring is not typically manual. The gambling transactions were not unusual or out of character given the account appeared to be used largely for gambling purposes, with regular credits maintaining a positive balance. Although there were particularly high frequencies of payments on specific days that arguably should have prompted fraud checks, Mr H's compulsion to gamble meant intervention would likely have been unsuccessful. Critically, the first sign of financial difficulties (overdraft on 6 June 2025) occurred after Mr H had already stopped gambling (last transaction 4 June 2025), so no loss could be attributed to HSBC's failure to intervene.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website