Investec Bank PLC · DRN-6236422

The complaint Mr K complains that he was unable to open a savings account with Investec Bank PLC because it was unable to verify his details, costing him interest. What happened In January 2026 Mr K applied to Investec for a savings account, he completed the application and provided the documentation requested as part of the application. Unfortunately, Mr K was told his application had failed and Investec wouldn’t be able to open a savings account for him. Mr K complained - he felt he’d provided the necessary documentation to verify himself so couldn’t understand why his account hadn’t been approved. Investec considered the complaint but didn’t uphold it – it said he’d failed the verification checks that were required as part of the account opening so felt it hadn’t done anything wrong. Mr K referred his complaint to this service – our investigator looked into things but didn’t feel Investec acted unfairly so they didn’t ask Investec to take any action. Mr K remained unhappy and asked for an ombudsman to review the complaint, so it has been passed to me to make a final decision. What I’ve decided – and why I’ve considered all the available evidence and arguments to decide what’s fair and reasonable in the circumstances of this complaint. I realise this will come as a disappointment to Mr K but having done so, I won’t be asking Investec to do anything further. I agree with the conclusions reached by the investigator for largely the same reasons. I’ll explain why. Mr K tried to open an Investec 90-day notice savings account. During the application process Investec went through a digital process to verify Mr K’s identity. The outcome was that Investec was unable to verify the details of Mr K’s personal address. Financial companies must verify information provided by customers and potential customers to confirm their identity and protect both the company and the customer against fraud. Companies will have their own processes for verifying customer information. Investec has explained and evidenced to this service the process it went through with Mr K’s account as it also did in the final response letter to Mr K. In summary it said its verification process is carried out online and relies on accurate information about a customer’s details and bank account being given to credit reference agencies (CRAs). These checks are a common industry practice and are used to help verify

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the information being provided by the applicant. I can see from the evidence provided by Investec that it made attempts to verify the account. I can see that the checks failed due to the mismatch of an address. This is not to say that any fault lies with Mr K but simply that the verification failed because of a mismatch of information. Mr K has told us that he’d recently moved address – about three weeks before he made the application. I think it’s likely this didn’t allow sufficient time for the details to have been updated on the CRAs records and so it’s likely this is why the system Investec was using was unable to verify Mr K. So I'm satisfied it hasn't acted unfairly by not continuing with the application and I won’t be asking it to do anything further. Ultimately it is for Investec to decide the degree of risk it is willing to take and the degree of information it needs to open an account, in line with its legal, regulatory and business requirements. I am not a regulator, and I am not able to instruct Investec to change its business practices. Whilst I do understand that Mr K considers Investec’s policy to be inflexible, I can't see that it is treating him differently or less favourably than any other customer in this position. It follows that I cannot fairly require it to take any further action Finally, I note that Mr K feels that he has had to expend an unreasonable amount of time in dealing with this issue, but because I can’t conclude that Investec has done anything wrong here, I can’t fairly ask Investec to take any action because of this. My final decision For the reasons I’ve explained, I don’t uphold this complaint. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mr K to accept or reject my decision before 21 April 2026. Jag Dhuphar Ombudsman

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