Credit card ban for Swedish pensioners
TT/Claudia Rodas - [email protected]
Published: 20 Aug, 2008 CET.
Updated: Wed 20 Aug 2008 09:55 CET
Swedish clients over the age of 75 are not eligible for credit cards at the US-owned Citibank in Sweden, Dagens Nyheter reports.
Justifying the ban, the company's customer service department argued that it was "impossible to know how long people will live once they turn 75. Those are our rules."
The Swedish branch of Citibank's head of information Hampus Stenberg does not believe that an age limit is unusual.
"It's a risk assessment that we, just like many other banks, carry out", he said.
However, Sweden's largest organization for pensioners' rights, Pensionärernas Riksorganisation (PRO), considers Citibank's policy outright age discrimination.
"It is clear older people are being penalized," said PRO chairman Lars Wettergren.
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Justifying the ban, the company's customer service department argued that it was "impossible to know how long people will live once they turn 75. Those are our rules."
The Swedish branch of Citibank's head of information Hampus Stenberg does not believe that an age limit is unusual.
"It's a risk assessment that we, just like many other banks, carry out", he said.
However, Sweden's largest organization for pensioners' rights, Pensionärernas Riksorganisation (PRO), considers Citibank's policy outright age discrimination.
"It is clear older people are being penalized," said PRO chairman Lars Wettergren.
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