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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Rob Davies

UK financial firms ‘may be lending over £174m a week to at-risk gamblers’

A croupier with a roulette wheel
Abound said lenders would be ‘unable to identify many financially vulnerable potential borrowers in the online era’ using the standard checks. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA

Financial institutions in the UK may be lending more than £174m a week to people who are using a risky proportion of their income on gambling, an analysis of the spending patterns of loan customers suggests.

The credit technology firm Abound looked at the open banking data of people who applied for its loans and used artificial intelligence to assess all their financial transactions over a six-month period.

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