Not upheld: failure to intervene in gambling transactions / duty of care complaint against Bank of Scotland plc (trading as Halifax)

Decision detail

Summary

Mr H complained that Halifax failed in its duty of care by not intervening in his repeated gambling transactions over four years, which he said led to substantial debts. Halifax responded that Mr H had not disclosed his gambling struggles, had not activated available controls, and that the bank would not block legitimate, authorized transactions without customer-initiated controls. The ombudsman found that banks do not generally monitor accounts specifically for gambling activity and will only intervene if alerted through customer disclosure or clear signs of financial difficulty such as borrowing to gamble or missed payments. Since none of these indicators were present, the ombudsman did not uphold the complaint.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

Banks are not generally required to monitor accounts specifically for gambling activity. A bank may become aware of gambling problems through customer disclosure or through detecting signs of financial difficulty such as borrowing to gamble, missed priority bills, or unpaid direct debits. In this case, none of these indicators were present. Mr H made legitimate, authorized transactions using his own funds, and had not informed Halifax of his gambling struggles. The bank's fundamental requirement is to facilitate authorized payments, which it did. There was no evidence Mr H would have requested the transactions be blocked had Halifax spoken to him, given he had not previously disclosed his gambling issues.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website