Back in 2018, Monzo became the first bank to introduce a gambling block designed to enable customers who had a gambling problem to block payments to gambling companies. Following Monzo’s lead, many UK banks have followed customer demand and introduced similar blocking systems.Initially, the gambling block was only effective if a customer made a payment via a card, open banking payments were not included.
Klarna
Klarna entered the open banking world after acquiring Sofort the German direct bank to bank payment service in 2014. Sofort provided open banking payments to a wide range of traders along with online gambling companies.Klarna has now allowed an extension on its voluntary gambling blocks for open-banking payments to protect its UK customers from gambling-related harm.
Gambling Blocks
Banks associated with Sofort will identify payment requests for gambling companies, and if a block is in place the transaction is automatically blocked to protect the customer.Head of Klarna UK Alex Marsh said, “We’re calling on banks and other open banking infrastructure providers to make the relatively small update which could help protect hundreds of thousands of customers in the UK.“Open banking has huge potential to increase competition and reduce costs and as adoption grows the industry must move quickly to make changes which can further improve the lives of UK consumers.”Klarna is currently the largest open banking system in the world providing its services to more than 15,000 banks globally. Sofort, one of Klarna’s bank-to-bank payment systems is used by 75,000 traders across Europe including online gambling platforms.