HSBC has stopped allowing its customers to use their credit cards for Internet betting amid rising concern over unauthorised gambling.
Group public affairs manager David Hall said the bank had acted on legal advice, although he would not specify the nature of the advice. He defended the decision not to announce the move or give notice.
The bank says it stopped authorising such transactions about a year ago, although a number of HSBC credit card-holders said they had still been able to gamble on the Internet until last week. One said: 'I've been betting on the Internet with William Hill for over a year, but for the past 10 days I've been unable to deposit funds using my HSBC credit card.'
Mr Hall described these transactions as aberrations. 'We did not issue a press release [on the ban],' he said. 'If you have an illegal site and you put out a notice saying you won't allow transactions involving an illegal site, it would be perverse.'
The bank's customer representatives also appear to have been kept in the dark. Of three representatives contacted on the bank's credit-card hotline, only one was aware of the prohibition.
HSBC claimed Visa and Mastercard supported the bank's position.
A Visa International spokesman said: 'Visa does not prohibit online gambling . . . HSBC's policy to restrict its cardholders is consistent with the practice where any bank may vary services it offers to its customers.'