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My wife was recently declined for a credit card based solely on the fact she is 6 months pregnant and will soon be on maternity leave.

The scenario details are as follows:

Application was made in person in a pre-booked appointment. The process was undertaken by a trainee. Various details were entered into the system including salary (>£30k), savings (>10k) and current debt (<5k). Then various questions were asked including "will your financial circumstances change within the next two years?". My wife answered yes and explained she is due to go on maternity leave soon. At this point a "computer says no" message appeared and she was told that this was the end of the appointment. My wife expressed surprise and the trainee consulted other members of staff who confirmed that the change in circumstances resulting from maternity meant that she could not obtain a card at this time.

My wife has a completely clean history and was understandably surprised. She has since applied (successfully) to another organisation. During the application this other organisation told her that, since she is on maternity leave and not losing her job, she should answer no in response to the question about a change in circumstances. Further, they offered to contact the bank and ask why she had been declined - The bank responded that she had been declined for a variety of reasons and categorically denied that pregnancy was in any way a factor in their decision (this is clearly a lie). Thus not only was the application likely declined erroneously but her credit score has been impacted.

Obviously we will be withdrawing all accounts from this bank and will not use them again. We have put in a direct complaint with the bank but don't believe that they will take this seriously.

The question: is there something more punitive that we can do and/or is there any way to undo the (minor) damage to credit score?

Update: the bank's complaint service "investigated" the complaint but decided that the action was justified and repeated their own fictitious sequence of events, essentially ignoring our complaint. We are now escalating the matter to the Financial Ombudsman.

P. Hopkinson
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2 Answers2

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I'm not in the UK, but just a matter of observation:

My wife was recently declined for a credit card based solely on the fact she is 6 months pregnant and will soon be on maternity leave.

No, your wife was declined because her financial situation was presented as it would be negatively affected.

She likely would have been declined if she said she was going on vacation for 6 months and her financial situation would also be negatively affected. In such case, she wouldn't be getting declined "solely on the fact that she's taking a vacation".

The bank is going to give you an official reason for declining you (or at least they do here in the states), and they sound like they already took an official stance when your next bank called them for their reasoning. Just because you got the impression it was because of a protected reason like pregnancy doesn't make it so.

And, and here's really the main point, even if you're 100% convinced it was because she was pregnant and solely because she was pregnant, you'd then have to prove it. Bank will fall back on any subjective reason to decline her. In cases like this you'd likely have to prove the bank has a history of such actions, or catch a bank official on tape telling you it was solely because of her pregnancy, or something extreme to that nature.

Best advice, recognize the bank is awful (in your experience) and move on with life. Move your money, don't do business with them, which it sounds like you're already doing. :)

Alex Robinson
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jadoti
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The pregnancy is a red herring as such, they have not declined you to do with the pregnancy, they have declined due to a expected decrease in income that takes you below the threshold required to get the loan.

protected characteristics like pregnancy can't be used to discriminate, but your income is not a protected characteristic , and the protection doesn't extend to the decrease in income coming from maternity leave.

If you applied for the loan with your wife's expected income from maternity leave from the start and not said anything about the pregnancy, you would of most likely still been declined.

There is no punitive action to take, because there has been no discrimination that has taken place. Just because you don't like the result doesn't make it discrimination.

J.Doe
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