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How long you have been with your bank is a standard question which tests your financial probity. Someone who has banked with the same bank for 20 years simply looks more reliable than someone who has only been with their current bank for 6 months.
It is also, potentially, a way of flagging up potential churners at an early stage. People who move their current account every year for a new bonus are almost certainly going to do the same with a credit card.
You don’t say if you earn £50k or not.
How long you have been with your bank is a standard question which tests your financial probity. Someone who has banked with the same bank for 20 years simply looks more reliable than someone who has only been with their current bank for 6 months.
It is also, potentially, a way of flagging up potential churners at an early stage. People who move their current account every year for a new bonus are almost certainly going to do the same with a credit card.
You don’t say if you earn £50k or not.
I agree it is common but I’ve always thought it’s a bit of a weird question to ask the customer though, since they will get a definitive answer on that from the CRA surely?
How long you have been with your bank is a standard question which tests your financial probity. Someone who has banked with the same bank for 20 years simply looks more reliable than someone who has only been with their current bank for 6 months.
It is also, potentially, a way of flagging up potential churners at an early stage. People who move their current account every year for a new bonus are almost certainly going to do the same with a credit card.
You don’t say if you earn £50k or not.
I agree it is common but I’ve always thought it’s a bit of a weird question to ask the customer though, since they will get a definitive answer on that from the CRA surely?
But they are asking the customer to ensure the answer they are given tallies with the CRA
How long you have been with your bank is a standard question which tests your financial probity. Someone who has banked with the same bank for 20 years simply looks more reliable than someone who has only been with their current bank for 6 months.
It is also, potentially, a way of flagging up potential churners at an early stage. People who move their current account every year for a new bonus are almost certainly going to do the same with a credit card.
You don’t say if you earn £50k or not.
I think we can be pretty sure they don’t earn £50k as that seems to be the one deciding factor in all these Amex Plat declines recently
How long you have been with your bank is a standard question which tests your financial probity. Someone who has banked with the same bank for 20 years simply looks more reliable than someone who has only been with their current bank for 6 months.
It is also, potentially, a way of flagging up potential churners at an early stage. People who move their current account every year for a new bonus are almost certainly going to do the same with a credit card.
You don’t say if you earn £50k or not.
Thanks Rob. I don’t earn 50k, but our household income – allegedly taken into account – is a lot higher than that.
I did eventually get an email saying I was rejected based on my personal income but I put exactly the same information in for the soft check and was told there was a 9/10 chance of a successful application. Why not reject at that stage if they literally are just making it a 50k cutoff?
I agree it is common but I’ve always thought it’s a bit of a weird question to ask the customer though, since they will get a definitive answer on that from the CRA surely?
But they are asking the customer to ensure the answer they are given tallies with the CRA[/quote]
Sure, but if there is more than one possible answer to that question, it seems a bit pointless. Plenty of people have more than one bank account these days, for various reasons, and would struggle to name which one is “their bank”.
I applied for Platinum on 21st July, and was rejected. Called up Amex and stated that it was internal scoring. The agent was fairly tight lipped about it and said due to policy, will not be able to tell me more. I have read this thread before and I believe it may be due to my credit limit on my current Amex card.
I have Amex Platinum Cashback Everyday card since 2020 and has always paid in full and on time. Credit limit is £23k, income is £60k, no mortgage. I stated to the representative that I am happy to reduce my current amex credit limit if this helps with my application for platinum. Has stated that he will send my application for manual review.
With those who have succeeded, how long does it take for you to hear back from Amex? Any benefit for me to reduce my credit limit now manually or should I wait for Amex to get back?
I think we can be pretty sure they don’t earn £50k as that seems to be the one deciding factor in all these Amex Plat declines recently
How does a credit reference agency check confirm (or not) income? I thought it merely showed account balances?
My income is from various sources, PAYE well under any level Amex would deem of interest to them as a potential customer.
Thanks Rob. I don’t earn 50k, but our household income – allegedly taken into account – is a lot higher than that.
Household income is either completely ignored (and sourced as an fyi data point only) or assigned a minimal value in the credit scoring process, given that lenders have no legal recourse on such household (e.g. partner) income when they most need it (i.e. in a failure to pay event by the cardholder), unless it comes from a formal guarantor. So chances are you did get rejected on the basis of your personal income.
A credit card is a loan agreement. It would be irresponsible by a bank lender to lend money to someone who doesn’t have direct and stable means to support repayment. A partner or family member who can just walk out anytime is not a stable source of income. No need to walk out even, there is no legal obligation to stand in for someone’s debt only because they happen to live under the same roof. Assigning any value to moral goodwill to voluntarily support someone else’s debt is not something we should ask lenders to do, it would just open the door to irresponsible lending and the next credit bubble. The effect of irresponsible lending could be seen 15y ago in the US subprime bubble, where mortgages were extended to people who could never afford even the first repayment instalment cheque, and it ended in tears for everybody, banks/borrowers/world economy.
I think we can be pretty sure they don’t earn £50k as that seems to be the one deciding factor in all these Amex Plat declines recently
How does a credit reference agency check confirm (or not) income? I thought it merely showed account balances?
My income is from various sources, PAYE well under any level Amex would deem of interest to them as a potential customer.
Credit card firms use a variety of checks in addition to the credit reference agencies including services like National Hunter which checks, inter alia, the consistency of information you provide to different firms. They also use the information they can access from the CRA to extrapolate some approximate data similarly to the way HMRC checks company and personal returns to ascertain whether the information filed is consistent with what they expect. I think people have become overly focussed on the minimum income aspect when every aspect of credit analysis has, unsurprisingly, been tightened. General stability, amount of open unsecured credit, mortgage, too many applications, changes in pattern of repayments etc.
Credit providers are having to demonstrate to their shareholders and bond holders that while bad debts are already rising, they are taking steps to ensure that they remain manageable. It’s a big question on analyst calls!
With those who have succeeded, how long does it take for you to hear back from Amex? Any benefit for me to reduce my credit limit now manually or should I wait for Amex to get back?
I reduced my credit limit on my BA Amex manually before applying for the Platinum Card, on the advice of posters on this forum.
I was accepted without any issues, and despite my income being less than the £50k often cited here as the new minimum.
I can’t speak to your situation specifically, but personally I’d probably wait for Amex to get back to me before making any changes.
With those who have succeeded, how long does it take for you to hear back from Amex? Any benefit for me to reduce my credit limit now manually or should I wait for Amex to get back?
I reduced my credit limit on my BA Amex manually before applying for the Platinum Card, on the advice of posters on this forum.
I was accepted without any issues, and despite my income being less than the £50k often cited here as the new minimum.
I can’t speak to your situation specifically, but personally I’d probably wait for Amex to get back to me before making any changes.
It’s currently £35k minimum for Plat, I assume you met that target?
The £50k min mentioned above was for a temporary period of time whilst Amex ran an enhanced SUB offer
It’s currently £35k minimum for Plat, I assume you met that target?
Yes, although as I work part-time, most of my income comes from my investments (and is therefore harder to accurately report).
Having a rigid minimum-income requirement seems like a bit of an own-goal for Amex in this regard; it will discourage many retired and semi-retired folk with considerable disposable income who don’t necessarily meet Amex’s cut-off point, but who have excellent credit ratings and no problem in paying their bills.
It’s been a week since I last called Amex, and they said will send my application for manual review. Have not heard anything since then.
How long did they take to update you once they done their manual reviews? Will it be through email?
Called Amex back and it was declined again. Couldn’t clarify exactly why but suggests maybe credit exposure was too high. Advised to consider to to reduce credit limit on my existing cards and apply again in 90 days.
Called Amex back and it was declined again. Couldn’t clarify exactly why but suggests maybe credit exposure was too high. Advised to consider to to reduce credit limit on my existing cards and apply again in 90 days.
Having excessive open unsecured credit lines as a reason for rejection has been mentioned here quite a lot. Barclaycard has always been sensitive to this but Amex has moved increasingly that way. Some have suggested that having lots of big credit lines with low utilisation is a sign of financial strength but that isn’t how responsible credit card providers see it. Their experience shows that if someone runs into trouble (often related to redundancy or relationship breakdown) those lines can get used very rapidly and the risk is even higher in the tougher economic times we are currently experiencing. It’s worth keeping limits that have plenty of headroom for your regular monthly expenditure, plus something for any likely bigger spending, but beyond that high overall limits may work against you.
Called Amex back and it was declined again. Couldn’t clarify exactly why but suggests maybe credit exposure was too high. Advised to consider to to reduce credit limit on my existing cards and apply again in 90 days.
Excessive credit has been discussed here multiple times before. People don’t want to read and then use this as a complaint board.
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