American Express Wants Access To Bank Account Before Approval...

[TG101]

Every time I apply for a AmEx card I get asked for access to my bank account. Never going to happen, so am I never going to get a AmEx? This seems really invasive and even if I did give them access to one, I have so many seperate accounts at different banks no single account is going to accurately represent my financial situation. 

[FicoMike0]

Must be something in your credit report that they question. Maybe a data dump would get suggestions.

[GZG]

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@TG101 wrote:

Every time I apply for a AmEx card I get asked for access to my bank account. Never going to happen, so am I never going to get a AmEx? This seems really invasive and even if I did give them access to one, I have so many seperate accounts at different banks no single account is going to accurately represent my financial situation. 

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this is an example of an entry in the early warning systems credit report, a report you can't freeze and you're only way to not give data to it is to find banks that don't report to it 

I understand giving over your actual bank account is a tad more evasive than this, but it's really not that much more so, IMO 

connecting the bank account that gets your income or has a bunch of money in it is probably what they are looking for if you decide to move forward 

they may be okay with not asking you and just approving you without it at some point, but no way of telling when that will be

[ADMYFIC0]

For identity verification (not income verification), AMEX prefers banks with recent transactions within a month. A high balance alone won't suffice if there's no activity in the past month – you'll be prompted to connect another bank. At least that's how it worked for me last time. 

[SRT4kid93]

@TG101 

I bekieve they only do this when your approval is very borderline, they are unsure if they want to give you a card and use your bank account as the tie breaker. They asked for access for me, but not some of my friends and family. Since they had better profiles. And I ended up getting the borderline $1000 starting limit. 

[FicoMike0]

Btw, I recently apped the Aven card and they asked for a bank account to verify income. Like you, I have several accounts. I chose one with several thousand and recent activity, but to which none of my income is dded. They approved it anyway. 

[AndySoCal]

Thanks for posting this. I  will never be an AMEX customer. This is far to invasive just for an account

[FlaDude]

They wanted to connect to my bank for a CLI request. The only reason I was trying for the CLI was that it was my only card under 10k limit (2.5k) and pretty much for vanity reasons I wanted it over 10k too. I moved limit from another card instead to achieve my goal.

[FicoMike0]

Maybe amex never asked me for a bank account because id link my amex checking.

[AndrewF]

When they want to see your bank account it often means your credit profile is marginal (not bad enough to trigger an automatic no, but not enough for an approval either) and they want to see if you're managing your finances and actually have plenty of money.

It can also mean that they've extended you as much credit as they're comfortable with and are starting to have reservations, but if they like what they see they might offer you more.