Banks should give clear reason for application denial

[Lobogris]

I got a mail from SBI that said,

Thank you for showing interest in SBI Credit Card.
While processing your credit card application for issuance of SBI Credit card, we observed that
unfortunately, you do not meet the age eligibility criteria set forth in our internal policy. We, therefore,
regret to inform that we will be unable to process your credit card application further.
The reason for decline of your credit card application is a business decision, taken in good faith and
certainly in no way, is indicative of your credit worthiness. Please accept our sincere apologies
towards the inconvenience caused to you in this regard.
It is our constant endeavor to ensure that our services always drive positive customer experience and
hence, to have an opportunity to serve you, we would like you to consider applying for our secured
card. Issuance of the secured credit card is subject to our internal policy criteria governing issuance
and you are required to fulfill the following eligibility parameters:
a) You should be an account holder of the bank.
b) You should have a term deposit with the bank, which will be kept under lien during the tenure of
credit card
Please contact the branch representative at the nearest bank branch for further details in this regard.
You may also visit our website sbsbicard.com.

Would you mind sharing if your age is too young or too old as per their norms?

 

[aayusharyan]

I got a mail from SBI that said,

Thank you for showing interest in SBI Credit Card.
While processing your credit card application for issuance of SBI Credit card, we observed that
unfortunately, you do not meet the age eligibility criteria set forth in our internal policy. We, therefore,
regret to inform that we will be unable to process your credit card application further.
The reason for decline of your credit card application is a business decision, taken in good faith and
certainly in no way, is indicative of your credit worthiness. Please accept our sincere apologies
towards the inconvenience caused to you in this regard.
It is our constant endeavor to ensure that our services always drive positive customer experience and
hence, to have an opportunity to serve you, we would like you to consider applying for our secured
card. Issuance of the secured credit card is subject to our internal policy criteria governing issuance
and you are required to fulfill the following eligibility parameters:
a) You should be an account holder of the bank.
b) You should have a term deposit with the bank, which will be kept under lien during the tenure of
credit card
Please contact the branch representative at the nearest bank branch for further details in this regard.
You may also visit our website sbicard.com.

Try reverting that with a counter argument that does this mean that SBI Cards doesn't onboard new to bank members? Because I think they do onboard NTB people.

 

[aayusharyan]

The contents of this circular has been included in the Fair Practices Code. That's pretty much mandatory.

Yes, banks should do that, but then if they don't we should also bamboo them.

 

[aayusharyan]

Fully agree with you. It will help the customers as well as the bank. If a bank requires, say, minimum 5 years of credit history, then we can stop wasting our time and theirs by applying several times before we reach that threshold. If they think the reason is too many accounts or too low income, again, the customer can try and change that before applying again. Now we go blindly and waste our and their time.

In fact, the complete approval threshold and scoring system should be made public. Why should it be a secret? I should be able to see how I scored on each factor and what the factors are.

Yes, I wouldn't want them to give all the nitty gritty exact details, but atleast a bit more than "Internal Policies". 🤣

 

[aayusharyan]

This seems to be just a fairytale in India. Else, we shouldn't be hearing of all the things that still happen till date. 😀

Yes, but then consumers also don't know about this. So, once enough people will start asking more specific reasons, banks will feel the pressure from the Cx team (I hope) that these repeated queries are coming, and they will invest (I hope) some money into improving their systems to show better rejection reasons.

 

[shrewdoc]

banks will feel the pressure from the Cx team (I hope) that these repeated queries are coming

Joke of the day 🤣🤣🤣

 

[shrewdoc]

There are many posts on this forum that people had to go to RBI Ombudsman just to know those reasons.

 

[aayusharyan]

Haha yes, I know. I myself am ready to go to OB if the Banks don't give proper explanation. But again, one can hope for things to improve. And we, as consumers should also not let it happen. We should fight for that 1 use enquiry.

 

[aayusharyan]

Ref RBI Circulars:
- https://www.rbi.org.in/commonperson/English/Scripts/Notification.aspx?Id=1574
- https://rbi.org.in/Scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=3315&Mode=0

RBI says this.


Now, how we can use this for the benefits of consumers.
Basically, banks have the habit of giving a blanket reason of that the card application has been rejected because of Internal Policies of the bank. (I applied for Change of Address for an existing Credit Card and I received this response) But that reason can be considered as unclear and we can request for a more clear reason for rejection. Reasons like Age mismatch, Low Credit Score, too many cards issued recently, etc etc.

BUT NOT REJECTED BECAUSE INTERNAL POLICIES.

I am making this a habit now that for every rejection, I will not stay quiet. I will raise my voice. 1 hard credit enquiry has been made, I will fight for it. If Level 1 doesn't help, will raise to Level 2. (Contact emails can be found here - this thread)

I am sure we all would have faced situations where immediately after applying they give rejection. (Sometimes even before doing vKYC or even asking income documents). What reason they give? Internal Policies. 🤦🏻‍♂️ With citing this circular in the support emails, we have better chances of moving the balance needle towards us again.

But, there is a Catch
In theory, it can be said that Banks have advised to do this, not mandated. So, the banker can argue that they are not required by law to state the reason. (That's why they still keep doing that, because they are not penalised for that). In that case, I would say keep pushing, maybe this particular agent didn't wanted to help, maybe next agent will help. If nothing, then go for OB, when all the other approaches are exhausted. Also, to be noted, RBI has used the term main reason/reasons. Bank person can theoretically argue that Internal Policies is the main reason, but again. Take a day off, then reply again in hopes of some other agent who can be more helpful.

There is no harm in trying
With each of my email for rejection reason, I am also attaching some of the content for re-evaluation of my credit card application. Because end of the day, that's all that matters (I get the Card I applied for and spent my Enquiry on). (Reference details can be found here - this thread)

---
I am currently pushing for 2 of my Credit Card applications (SBI and StanC). I will keep updating this thread. Meanwhile, others who were able to do something similar, please share your experience.
Eventually, if we can prepare some sort of template for this for the benefits of consumers, it will be awesome. 😍

I got a call today from SBI Cards Team. I can say it was official because that lady was able to pull up records from as back as 2019 applications. Also she said all the documents will be over SBI official email ID.

However, coming to the reason. She mentioned that the application is not rejected, it shows like that on portal. But it has been put on hold because I hold too many Credit Cards. (Which of course I do). She said that the documents are fine and reconfirmed stuff like Salary and all. I confirmed all that, she said that she is raising this up with her head of department and I should expect some response in 1 month. (I don't know why that long time, but anyways). She said once that is in process, she will only call back (Anyway if I don't hear from her until 15th December, I will start bothering the Customer Care again). I am not letting my efforts go in vain.

 

[KLB@96]

got this reply from RBL when I asked for reason

Greetings from RBL Bank!



This is with reference to your email dated November 07, 2023 regarding application reject.



We wish to inform you that your application has been considered in line with the Bank's internal credit policy (which is based on a combination of financial and related criteria and/or statistically determined scores to assess credit eligibility) and operating/credit processes (which include a combination of verifications, credit bureau reports and document verifications). We regret to inform you that we are unable to approve your application as it does not meet the above-mentioned internal criteria of the Bank.



Please be assured that our inability to approve the credit card application does not reflect in anyway on your credit standing or your financial stability.

 

[aayusharyan]

got this reply from RBL when I asked for reason

Greetings from RBL Bank!



This is with reference to your email dated November 07, 2023 regarding application reject.



We wish to inform you that your application has been considered in line with the Bank's internal credit policy (which is based on a combination of financial and related criteria and/or statistically determined scores to assess credit eligibility) and operating/credit processes (which include a combination of verifications, credit bureau reports and document verifications). We regret to inform you that we are unable to approve your application as it does not meet the above-mentioned internal criteria of the Bank.



Please be assured that our inability to approve the credit card application does not reflect in anyway on your credit standing or your financial stability.

So basically something related to your Cerdit Report it seems. (Maybe low Credit Score, too many Credit Cards). Something along that line. Take the cooldown period and try working on that if you think so...

 

[KLB@96]

So basically something related to your Cerdit Report it seems. (Maybe low Credit Score, too many Credit Cards). Something along that line. Take the cooldown period and try working on that if you think so...

790+ score , 9 active CC

 

[aayusharyan]

790+ score , 9 active CC

Yeah, so mostly you are on a similar boat as me. Write a follow up email then. stuff like despite having these many credit lines, you have 100% on time payment, credit utilisation under 10%, stuff like that.

 

[vijaykumarm]

I got a mail from SBI that said,

Thank you for showing interest in SBI Credit Card.
While processing your credit card application for issuance of SBI Credit card, we observed that
unfortunately, you do not meet the age eligibility criteria set forth in our internal policy. We, therefore,
regret to inform that we will be unable to process your credit card application further.
The reason for decline of your credit card application is a business decision, taken in good faith and
certainly in no way, is indicative of your credit worthiness. Please accept our sincere apologies
towards the inconvenience caused to you in this regard.
It is our constant endeavor to ensure that our services always drive positive customer experience and
hence, to have an opportunity to serve you, we would like you to consider applying for our secured
card. Issuance of the secured credit card is subject to our internal policy criteria governing issuance
and you are required to fulfill the following eligibility parameters:
a) You should be an account holder of the bank.
b) You should have a term deposit with the bank, which will be kept under lien during the tenure of
credit card
Please contact the branch representative at the nearest bank branch for further details in this regard.
You may also visit our website sbicard.com.

If the reason for rejection is age, did they hit your CIBIL? Did you ask them to remove the CIBIL inquiry? They don’t need a CIBIL data to check DOB

 

[atx]

got this reply from RBL when I asked for reason

Greetings from RBL Bank!



This is with reference to your email dated November 07, 2023 regarding application reject.



We wish to inform you that your application has been considered in line with the Bank's internal credit policy (which is based on a combination of financial and related criteria and/or statistically determined scores to assess credit eligibility) and operating/credit processes (which include a combination of verifications, credit bureau reports and document verifications). We regret to inform you that we are unable to approve your application as it does not meet the above-mentioned internal criteria of the Bank.



Please be assured that our inability to approve the credit card application does not reflect in anyway on your credit standing or your financial stability.

this is the EXACT line by line response HDFC gave me recently while applying/waiting/rejection for dcb ltf.



PS: According to me, this is just a vague language to confuse. Exact reason is not mentioned anywhere as asked by RBI.

 

[aayusharyan]

this is the EXACT line by line response HDFC gave me recently while rejecting dcb ltf.

PS: According to me, this is just a vague language to confuse. Exact reason is not mentioned anywhere as asked by RBI.

I would say push for it. I am pushing for my DCB LTF... IF, IF I am able to get it, I will write a nice post here sharing my experience. But just to give context, I am pushing as much as I can. I sent this mail like 30 mins ago. See the amount of content I wrote to put my points across.

 

[viznu99]

I would say push for it. I am pushing for my DCB LTF... IF, IF I am able to get it, I will write a nice post here sharing my experience. But just to give context, I am pushing as much as I can. I sent this mail like 30 mins ago. See the amount of content I wrote to put my points across.

Blurry... Allow us the reading pleasure of your writing skills !

 

[atx]

I would say push for it. I am pushing for my DCB LTF... IF, IF I am able to get it, I will write a nice post here sharing my experience. But just to give context, I am pushing as much as I can. I sent this mail like 30 mins ago. See the amount of content I wrote to put my points across.

Yeah man, I pushed for 2+ months, since Aug mid. Finally on Nov 1, they replied that they're not considering BHU as eligible institute for diners ltf program. I don't know why in the world they asked for salary slips etc everything & kept me in hanging till Nov 1, when they got the degree certificate first thing on Aug 17 itself.

 

[aayusharyan]

Blurry... Allow us the reading pleasure of your writing skills !

I will but first I need to know even if that works or not. I mean, I would not want to share something that doesn't work... 🫣

 

[aayusharyan]

Yeah man, I pushed for 2+ months, since Aug mid. Finally on Nov 1, they replied that they're not considering BHU as eligible institute for diners ltf program. I don't know why in the world they asked for salary slips etc everything & kept me in hanging till Nov 1, when they got the degree certificate first thing on Aug 17 itself.

Wow, these people are not very good with their own rules and regulations. 🤦🏻‍♂️