A card blocking function has been added by Barclays to its smartphone application (app), with hopes that it will help reduce fraud and unnecessary spending and is designed to help protect consumers that are in debt or have a serious gambling problem.
The app will let customers switch off certain categories of retailers to help curb and or stop them spending in areas like:
Once customers have updated their Barclays App the above service ‘blocking’ service can be used, but only for debit card transactions. Barclays are looking to apply this function to credit cards at a later.
Barclays is the first bank to introduce this type of app but other banks already offer a similar app where you can block your whole card in case you have lost or had it stolen e.g. NatWest.