Bank using customer data for sales
Discussion
I've put this in the Lounge as it is not a financial or legal discussion but more a moral one.
I got a call earlier from my bank Natwest asking if I would like to go in and see how they would save me money. Not having much money I asked how they thought they could save me money and the caller said 'well I can see you pay your mortgage to Halifax' and then went on to suggest Natwest have better deals.
Clearly they are looking through all my expenditure and identifying ways they can sell me their own products (they will also know I have other financial products with 3 other companies that they can sell me - insurance/credit cards etc).
Now I am sure somewhere I may have signed something that says they can use the information they hold about me to sell me products. But is this going a bit far?
Vodafone could for example monitor customer usage and then sell their customer a better plan - but they are just using their own usage data. I think this is a bit different as Natwest are able to see what I am spending with competitors and also I think financial information like spending habits comes with a certain expectation of privacy.
I don't mind Natwest seeing that I am always in overdraft and selling me a loan - that is what I would expect in terms of monitoring data and offering products. Having someone read through all my expenditure is a bit different IMO.
What do you think?
I'm not crying about it but I am not particularly happy either.
I did say this wasn't a legal issue but I do wonder whether they have ever actually obtained my permission for this - it is definitely not something that I would have as an expectation.
I got a call earlier from my bank Natwest asking if I would like to go in and see how they would save me money. Not having much money I asked how they thought they could save me money and the caller said 'well I can see you pay your mortgage to Halifax' and then went on to suggest Natwest have better deals.
Clearly they are looking through all my expenditure and identifying ways they can sell me their own products (they will also know I have other financial products with 3 other companies that they can sell me - insurance/credit cards etc).
Now I am sure somewhere I may have signed something that says they can use the information they hold about me to sell me products. But is this going a bit far?
Vodafone could for example monitor customer usage and then sell their customer a better plan - but they are just using their own usage data. I think this is a bit different as Natwest are able to see what I am spending with competitors and also I think financial information like spending habits comes with a certain expectation of privacy.
I don't mind Natwest seeing that I am always in overdraft and selling me a loan - that is what I would expect in terms of monitoring data and offering products. Having someone read through all my expenditure is a bit different IMO.
What do you think?
I'm not crying about it but I am not particularly happy either.
I did say this wasn't a legal issue but I do wonder whether they have ever actually obtained my permission for this - it is definitely not something that I would have as an expectation.
Mojooo said:
I've put this in the Lounge as it is not a financial or legal discussion but more a moral one.
I got a call earlier from my bank Natwest asking if I would like to go in and see how they would save me money. Not having much money I asked how they thought they could save me money and the caller said 'well I can see you pay your mortgage to Halifax' and then went on to suggest Natwest have better deals.
Clearly they are looking through all my expenditure and identifying ways they can sell me their own products (they will also know I have other financial products with 3 other companies that they can sell me - insurance/credit cards etc).
Now I am sure somewhere I may have signed something that says they can use the information they hold about me to sell me products. But is this going a bit far?
Vodafone could for example monitor customer usage and then sell their customer a better plan - but they are just using their own usage data. I think this is a bit different as Natwest are able to see what I am spending with competitors and also I think financial information like spending habits comes with a certain expectation of privacy.
I don't mind Natwest seeing that I am always in overdraft and selling me a loan - that is what I would expect in terms of monitoring data and offering products. Having someone read through all my expenditure is a bit different IMO.
What do you think?
I'm not crying about it but I am not particularly happy either.
I did say this wasn't a legal issue but I do wonder whether they have ever actually obtained my permission for this - it is definitely not something that I would have as an expectation.
Isn't this exactly the point - by understanding what you spend your money on they can target specific opportunities for you to save money (and increase business for them at the same time).I got a call earlier from my bank Natwest asking if I would like to go in and see how they would save me money. Not having much money I asked how they thought they could save me money and the caller said 'well I can see you pay your mortgage to Halifax' and then went on to suggest Natwest have better deals.
Clearly they are looking through all my expenditure and identifying ways they can sell me their own products (they will also know I have other financial products with 3 other companies that they can sell me - insurance/credit cards etc).
Now I am sure somewhere I may have signed something that says they can use the information they hold about me to sell me products. But is this going a bit far?
Vodafone could for example monitor customer usage and then sell their customer a better plan - but they are just using their own usage data. I think this is a bit different as Natwest are able to see what I am spending with competitors and also I think financial information like spending habits comes with a certain expectation of privacy.
I don't mind Natwest seeing that I am always in overdraft and selling me a loan - that is what I would expect in terms of monitoring data and offering products. Having someone read through all my expenditure is a bit different IMO.
What do you think?
I'm not crying about it but I am not particularly happy either.
I did say this wasn't a legal issue but I do wonder whether they have ever actually obtained my permission for this - it is definitely not something that I would have as an expectation.
It's easy to update your preferences if you don't want this type of interaction.
Barclays used to do this to me before I became a Premier customer ... as soon as that happened and I got a 'proper' personal banker - a named person who I call directly - she stopped all this nonsense for me and I've not heard anything other than from her since.
I agree it's invasive and non of their business - it's one of the big selling points of Handlesbanken to me but they couldn't offer me a comparative current account setup when I last enquired.
I agree it's invasive and non of their business - it's one of the big selling points of Handlesbanken to me but they couldn't offer me a comparative current account setup when I last enquired.
This has been going on for years.
Back in the 80s I got a letter from my bank (TSB) to contact them ASAP about my car loan. I received the letter on a Friday when I got home and all weekend I was worried as I could not understand what was wrong. Remember in those days banks were never open and you couldn't contact them over the weekend.
Spoke to them on the Monday only to be told that they thought I should consider one of their personal loans to pay the car loan off. I was absolutely furious
I'm sure they got penalised for this practise and didn't think it was allowed today.
Back in the 80s I got a letter from my bank (TSB) to contact them ASAP about my car loan. I received the letter on a Friday when I got home and all weekend I was worried as I could not understand what was wrong. Remember in those days banks were never open and you couldn't contact them over the weekend.
Spoke to them on the Monday only to be told that they thought I should consider one of their personal loans to pay the car loan off. I was absolutely furious
I'm sure they got penalised for this practise and didn't think it was allowed today.
This has been going on for years - I worked for Midland Bank since I was 18 and left 17 years later after it became HSBC - it was sales sales sales but not in the true sense because the people managing sales were not actually sales people so they could not train, manage and achieve 'sales'
I could go on for pages but I, along with many many other branch staff anticipated and indeed to sat there and told the bloke/woman who sat above in the chain of command that:
endowment mortages would go wrong
pensions were bad
PPI was bad
and that we should not sell it - all we got was a kick in the teeth at appraisal time and no pay rise - and look what has happened I was f
king right in 1989, 1993 & 1995 - all I got was a poor appraisal for predicting what WOULD and HAS happened. These place are runs by S & I was just a grade 3 bank clerk from the Isle of Wight but I could see it coming before it happened.
We could never get paid 'ovetime' other than for staying after work and phoning customer in the evening offering whatever was flavour of the month - it did not matter if there were 10,000 cheques needing processing after a bank holiday monday - no overtime for that. We used to go through printouts that showed account turnover/ average balances on current accounts/ standing orders & direct debits to other financial institutions - you get the picture - any data that could be harvested and give you a way in (without actaully telling the account holder)
I will give you an example with PPI - we had a target in the branch that 90% of personal loans were written with PPI - now here on the Isle of Wight the banks own data suggested that 55% of customers were economically inactive - in other works not eligable for PPI because they were not employed due to being retired, unemployed, in recipt of benefit or self employed - so you dont have to be a genuis to see that 5.5 out of every 10 personal loan applicants (on average) were not eligable for it so how could a branch target of 90 % be achieved withour lying,deception and ripping off of said applicant.
I have sat in a room many times and conned applicants into taking PPI in order to get the 90% target despite making representations to my boss who turned around and said 'no pay rise & I will put you on report' ... there is no other option but to join the corruption if you have just moved into your first home and expecting your first kiddie.
I could go on for pages but I, along with many many other branch staff anticipated and indeed to sat there and told the bloke/woman who sat above in the chain of command that:
endowment mortages would go wrong
pensions were bad
PPI was bad
and that we should not sell it - all we got was a kick in the teeth at appraisal time and no pay rise - and look what has happened I was f
king right in 1989, 1993 & 1995 - all I got was a poor appraisal for predicting what WOULD and HAS happened. These place are runs by S & I was just a grade 3 bank clerk from the Isle of Wight but I could see it coming before it happened.We could never get paid 'ovetime' other than for staying after work and phoning customer in the evening offering whatever was flavour of the month - it did not matter if there were 10,000 cheques needing processing after a bank holiday monday - no overtime for that. We used to go through printouts that showed account turnover/ average balances on current accounts/ standing orders & direct debits to other financial institutions - you get the picture - any data that could be harvested and give you a way in (without actaully telling the account holder)
I will give you an example with PPI - we had a target in the branch that 90% of personal loans were written with PPI - now here on the Isle of Wight the banks own data suggested that 55% of customers were economically inactive - in other works not eligable for PPI because they were not employed due to being retired, unemployed, in recipt of benefit or self employed - so you dont have to be a genuis to see that 5.5 out of every 10 personal loan applicants (on average) were not eligable for it so how could a branch target of 90 % be achieved withour lying,deception and ripping off of said applicant.
I have sat in a room many times and conned applicants into taking PPI in order to get the 90% target despite making representations to my boss who turned around and said 'no pay rise & I will put you on report' ... there is no other option but to join the corruption if you have just moved into your first home and expecting your first kiddie.
Unless they know your full current mortgage details (which they don't as its not with them) they cant possibly suggest they can 'save you money'. Its surely a cold call that is more intrusive than a normal one? Or do they actually stalk you and find out your lender/balance/term etc? Ugly.
Mojooo said:
...I do wonder whether they have ever actually obtained my permission for this - it is definitely not something that I would have as an expectation.
Their terms and conditions permit them to use your information (including the likes of somebody in a branch checking through your expenditure) in this way. The only way to stop this would be to close your account(s). Most (all?) banks will have similar clauses in their terms and conditions though.They will separately require your permission to actually reach out and contact you for marketing purposes though.
joefraser said:
Absolutely normal practice, mortgages being most people's biggest expenditure is the motivation for wanting to save you money. If you are on variable rate there's a good chance they will be able to as well, I'd take them up on the offer if I was.
They're not trying to save you money, they're touting for your business, primarily to make them more money!And if you think that's bad, they're selling your financial information to third parties (credit reference agencies) as well: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/curren...
They can only use customer data for the purpose for which the data was given to the bank, other use is a violation of data protection laws and the banks would not do this. They take compliance seriously.
If they are using your data it is because you authorised them to do so.
I worked for a bank way back when and we were definitely not allowed to trawl for customers paying mortgages to a competitor in order to offer them our mortgages, although that would have led to easy sales.
If they are using your data it is because you authorised them to do so.
I worked for a bank way back when and we were definitely not allowed to trawl for customers paying mortgages to a competitor in order to offer them our mortgages, although that would have led to easy sales.
I used to get this type of call, they even tried to ask me for private information to idenitify me, I said get lost and they were not happy. I changed the phone number and didnt tell the bank.
They tried again when I phone to see if a payment had cleared, they asked about my balance and said that I should buy an ISA, - no 'know your customer' just a straightforward I should buy and ISA, I told them that the last one they sold me lost money, they went very quiet.
Wasnt exactly true but sod it, if they can lie then so can I.
They tried again when I phone to see if a payment had cleared, they asked about my balance and said that I should buy an ISA, - no 'know your customer' just a straightforward I should buy and ISA, I told them that the last one they sold me lost money, they went very quiet.
Wasnt exactly true but sod it, if they can lie then so can I.
I closed my Nat West accounts last year after they reduced their ISA rates to 0.01%.
When I was transferring my money to my current BS, the branch manager told me they didn't want savers, they already had too much money sloshing around, his words not mine, which was why they were offering low interest rates on saving accounts.
What they wanted were customers who borrowed money and maxed out their credit cards. He said his job now was all about selling various "products" that encouraged customers to borrow as much as possible.
Some things haven't changed.
When I was transferring my money to my current BS, the branch manager told me they didn't want savers, they already had too much money sloshing around, his words not mine, which was why they were offering low interest rates on saving accounts.
What they wanted were customers who borrowed money and maxed out their credit cards. He said his job now was all about selling various "products" that encouraged customers to borrow as much as possible.
Some things haven't changed.
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