GamCare: How banks can be proactive in fighting gambling harm

GamCare is highlighting how banks in the UK can protect their customers from experiencing harm from gambling.

The news follows a recent workshop that the gambling support charity ran with experts from across the financial services sector. 

GamCare’s Gambling Related Financial Harm project, created in 2019, has been described as a cross-sector initiative to share knowledge, develop resources, and enable firms to support customers who are affected by gambling harms.  

Raminta Diliso, Financial Harm Manager at GamCare, noted: “Last year, 72% of people who contacted the National Gambling Helpline disclosed financial difficulties. Banks are particularly well placed to detect harmful and unaffordable gambling through bank statements and transactional data, and provide more targeted support to their customers. 

“We hope that more financial services firms will take a proactive approach and put the right steps in place to support customers who are experiencing financial difficulties related to gambling.” 

The workshop brought over 70 representatives from financial services, the debt advice sector and gambling support services.

The charity heard new ways in which some banks are beginning to take a more proactive role in protecting their customers.  

Furthermore, participants heard from a speaker from Santander on how the bank was engaging with customers who were potentially at-risk.

This includes better tools to review levels of gambling spend, more frequent push notifications about the support tools available, and signposting to support services after customers had spent large sums of money gambling in a 24-hour period. 

Following the session, the charity recommended steps that banks can take to support those impacted by gambling, such as analysing transactional data from customers to identify potential issues with gambling.

Graeme Cunning, Vulnerable Customers Strategy Manager at Santander, concluded: “At Santander, we believe that the bank, although not responsible, does have a part to play in gambling harm prevention.”

He explained how the bank has built a suite of interventions, including letters and text messages, to provide ‘timely signposting’ to support for customers at risk of financial detriment due to their gambling.

Meanwhile, the charity is also calling on more banks to ‘proactively refer’ customers at risk into third party expert gambling support, including services like the National Gambling Helpline, when transactional data indicates that the customer’s gambling may be becoming harmful and unaffordable.