Barclays customers now able to “switch off” certain spending

Although available to all customers using the latest version of the Barclays app, the aim is to help problem gamblers and those in persistent debt, it said.

As a result, customers will have the option of blocking spending in various categories, including:

• Groceries and supermarkets;
• Restaurants, takeaways, pubs and bars;
• Petrol and diesel;
• Gambling, including gambling websites and betting shops;
• Premium rate websites and phone lines, including TV voting, competitions and adult services.

Customers will not be able to block specific retailers, but instead decide which categories of spending are allowed.

Various charities such as StepChange Debt Charity, Money Advice Trust and Citizens Advice, have pushed for changes by banks to help customers control their spending.

Peter Tutton, head of policy at StepChange, said: “We are all in favour of genuinely useful customer-led tools that put people in control of managing their spending, especially if they recognise that certain spending habits could be problematic and lead them to incur preventable financial difficulty or debt.”

Although Barclays claims it is the “first high street bank” to offer such a service, other online banks already offer similar blockers.

Monzo, for example, introduced a similar tool in June, while Starling allows customers to block specific sites and retailers, unlike the Barclays tool.

While not yet offered through the building society’s app, Nationwide chief risk officer Julia Dunn told Credit Strategy in an interview in October: “What we see is unfortunately a cycle, and often it’s sadly linked with mental health issues. We had a customer who had sporadic mental health issues and they said ‘please can you block my account? Don’t allow gambling because when I have mental health problems, it’s one of the first things I do’.

“That’s the sort of thing the specialist support service does.”