Would you mind taking 2 minutes to complete our credit card availability survey?
Recent History
Credit card availability to Islanders, or the increasing lack of it, has been on our radar for 2-3 years. We have held multiple meetings with local financial institutions, Jersey Finance, Jersey Banking Association, as well as representatives of the previous government representatives.
Recently, the Council contacted several other providers including AMEX, MBNA, M&S Bank, Virgin Money and Tesco, and received replies from all. We have since become aware that John Lewis is also following the same pattern.
Reasons
Their reasons for either pulling out of the Channel Islands altogether; no longer accepting new applications; or only offering existing customers a replacement card; are two-fold:
1). Jersey is not part of the United Kingdom.
2). Providing the service is no longer commercially viable.
Locally, we are only aware that HSBC offers new applications to non-account holders if the applicant meets the appropriate requirements.
Having received more enquiries from islanders during the last year, and many in the last month, it appears the situation is worsening so we're trying to find out how many applications or renewal requests have been refused.
Survey Link
The closing date is Wednesday 14 September.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/creditcardavailability
Thank you