Finance

Not just a bunch of bankers

Barclays

• Product: Current account
• Status: New customer
• Method: Online
• Date: 17th November 2018 (last checked: 14th July 2020)
• Result: Mx title available. However, requires a binary gender be selected.

The Co-operative Bank

• Product: Current account
• Status: New customer
• Method: Online
• Date: 17th November 2018 (last checked: 14th July 2020)
• Result: Mandatory title, only neutral titles are "Dr" and "Prof". Binary gender is asked for later in the application process.
• Method: In-branch (Crewe)
• Date: 17th November 2018 (ongoing)
• Result: The staff member I spoke to on 18th Nov mentioned that there was an internal meeting recently about handling transgender and neutral customers. As such, guidelines (available as a PDF on their staff website, search for "Mx title") have been issued on how to work around the lack of "Mx" in their internal systems when it is requested by a customer. This involves setting the title to blank or unknown, depending on the system, and putting a note on the account that the customer wishes to be addressed as "Mx". Visa card services will also be sent a note requesting "Mx" to be printed on the card. Gender can also be left blank when setting up an account on the in-branch system. The staff member I spoke to will feed back the issues with the website noted above. Many thanks to the staff of the Crewe branch for guiding me through their processes and being open about what exactly they were doing. Unfortunately, the card and letter I received a week later (24th Nov) had suddenly got "Prof" on as the title. When phoning up, the support staff (while deeply apologetic) were struggling to find a way to change the title to blank, and certainly not "Mx". Additionally, my sex/gender field also suddenly was set to male too, despite not being provided as part of the setup process. After a while, a group effort of the staff managed to set the title to blank and order a new card with "Mx" as title (awaiting delivery to confirm). A couple of days later (26th Nov) however, I got a call back from a senior member of staff to say that their system reverted the change of title back to "Prof". They are pushing for "Mx" to be added to their system ASAP and are going to get back to me once they know an approximate timescale. On the plus side though, the sex/gender field has been set to neutral by said senior member of staff, and confirmed the card is being sent with "Mx" on. This means the only remaining issue is the title on the account which affects statements and the like. Fun sidenote though is that faster payments (bank transfers) show the sender as "MX [initials and surname]", which surprises me. Feedback will be passed internally on this so this mess of an account setup won't happen again, but they need to fix their internal guidelines that the Crewe branch were so confident in as they're clearly wrong or at least incomplete.

Halifax

• Product: Current account
• Status: Existing customer
• Method: Face-to-face (Crewe branch)
• Date: 9th July 2016
• Response: Would not allow Mx on account or cards.
• Result: I closed my account.
• Date: 23rd November 2018 (two years later)
• Update:Thank you to @Scyu_ for informing me that Halifax Online Banking has a form to request a name change and part of that includes a freeform text box for the title field.
• Method: Online
• Date: 14th July 2020
• Result: Selecting "Other" allows you to enter your own title, but a binary gender field is still required.

HSBC

• Product: Current account
• Status: New customer
• Method: Online
• Date: 17th November 2018 (last checked: 14th July 2020)
• Response: No Mx in title field, with neutral options "Dr", "Rev", "Sgt", "Prof", "Capt". Binary gender field also applies.
• Note: I've been told that HSBC will set "Mx" as your title if you ask for it in-branch, much like NatWest did for me years ago.

Monzo

• Product: Current Account
• Status: No title or gender information requested.

Natwest

• Product: Current account
• Status: New customer
• Method: Online
• Date: 14th July 2020
• Result: Mx title not available. When selecting a neutral option, a mandatory binary gender selector appears.
• Note from Peter: See below that you can get title in-branch manually, but presumably, not gender. Setting a new account up in-branch may let you select "Mx" from the start.

• Product: Current account
• Status: Existing customer
• Method: Face-to-face (Knutsford branch)
• Result: Mx title applied to account and debit card.
• Note from Peter: When this was done, their main system for doing changes would not let the staff member change the title to Mx. However, the staff member went into some console/DOS looking screens and manually typed in Mx in numerous screens (it took a while, but they were very keen to do it everywhere). Unfortunately, there was one place they missed (paper statements) but I told the Crewe branch and they fixed this straight away.

• Product: Credit card
• Status: Existing customer
• Method: Phone call
• Result: Mx title applied to credit card.
• Note from Peter: Communications (postal/email) use just "M" as a title, despite card saying "MX".

Jaja Finance

• Product: Credit Card
• Note: Bank of Ireland UK sold off its UK finance operations and the credit card side was bought by Jaja Finance. The Post Office Money credit card I had was a Bank of Ireland UK financed one (new Post Office credit cards are provided by Capital One). Personal details were inherited from Post Office/BOIUK including title on personal details side ("Mr") and on card face ("MX").
• Report: Jaja is currently not accepting new customers, only bringing in the customers it has bought off Bank of Ireland UK and the brands that were financed from that. Since the data was imported from Post Office, the account officially had "Mr" as the title, with the physical credit card itself having "MX" on it. So, I asked Jaja if they could change "Mr" on the account to "Mx" and they asked for "official documentation for the change like a deed poll or doctorate". I told them that titles are not legally enforcable and they shouldn't need any documentation to change it. After being put on hold for a bit, I was asked "is the title change as part of a gender change" and I said yes and they said they would change the title without documentation. However, after this, they found they didn't have "Mx" in their list of titles. Eventually, they figured out how to change the title field to be blank. This automatically issued a replacement card with "MX" removed, so not it's just my name, which is fine.
• Status: Jaja's system doesn't have "Mx" but they can change it to blank. Be aware that they may ask you for documentation on this, but push back as this shouldn't be necessary. If you go in leading with that you've changed gender (even if that's not true) you may be able to get things done a bit smoother.

Santander

• Product: Current Account
• Status: Requires a mandatory title during signup. "Mx" is one of the main options, but selecting "Other" gives you a long list of others. Unfortunately, a binary gender is mandatory.
• Last check: 14th July 2020
• Contact date: 16/11/2018 - they never got back to me.

Scottish Widows

• Product: Pension
• Status: When initially set up, they copied over what my workplace set as my title (assumed Mr). When I phoned them up to request the title change, they originally asked for deed poll until I eventually talked them down to just requiring a letter "with a signature". I then forgot about needing to send a letter until I moved house and they sent something to the old address and used "Mr" as title. So, when I phoned about changing address, I also asked about changing my title to "Mx", which they did immediately on the phone. I did not mention the request for a letter on this second attempt.
• SHAME UPDATE - 29th October 2018: The latest letter from Scottish Widows has returned to using "Mr". I will be contacting about this.

Starling Bank

• Product: Personal Current Account
• Status: Requires a mandatory title during signup. "Mx" is available on both iOS (as of version 0.69) and Android. No request for sex/gender.
• Date: 28/11/2018
• Notes: "Mx" was missing in the iOS app prior to my contact, but available on the Android version. Version 0.69 (nice) of the iOS app added "Mx" in as expected so make sure you're on the latest version of the app.

Yorkshire Building Society

• Product: Internet Saver ISA
• Status:"Mx" included as an option and no gender field present.

• Contributed By: h0m54r
• Product: Mortgage
• Report: When I applied for a mortgage with YBS, the paperwork I saw listed Mx as a selectable option along with the more traditional titles. Don’t know if that applies to their other products.