17 year old DS declined a Starling bank account, what could be the reason?

[everymeeveryyou]

For the last 8 years DS has had a Go Henry account. We received an email from Go Henry last week informing us that they will be closing his account as they no longer offer the service in the Channel Islands.
DD (19) had a Starling account that we opened when she was 17 with no issues so I thought that would be a good option for DS.
However DS’s application has been rejected and despite customer service saying on the phone that it may be something simple that we could rectify the team who deal with these queries have emailed him saying they cannot tell him why his application was declined.
I am just a bit confused as to what the reason could be, at 17 he has obviously never had any credit and we have lived at the same address for 5 years. His circumstances are no different to DD’s when she applied.
Has anyone experienced this or any idea what may have been the issue or had a similar experience?
The options for bank accounts for teens are pretty limited where we are so I thought an online bank may be a better option.

HSBC Channel Islands has a kids account that goes up to age 17. You could apply and ask it to be transferred to an adult account when he turns 18, maybe?

Thanks @Meadowwild we did try HSBC for my daughter and they were a bit difficult as she had left sixth form and was having a gap year so spent ages trying to work out how they could provide her an adult account without her having a job! It took them over 6 weeks to get back to us by which time we had got her sorted with Starling. However they are my next port of call, they seem to have a frustratingly long wait for an appointment here so will try and get one booked when they open on Monday.

DD has been with Halifax since she was 15. Now aged 20 and never had any issues, they’ve been great.

Starling rejected me applying for a Kite card the other day. Its a pre payment card for my 6 year old. They told me he wasn't eligible. I raised a complaint just so they would change how they tell people, not ro change the decision necessarily. I have banked with them for a while, have a decent amount of money with them and yet i don't qualify. I suspect their system is having issues or that the regulator has asked them to hold off new accounts for the time being.
I told them the main issue is they can't see why people are being rejected nor advise if they ever will qualify.

The whole system of brung denied and not knowing why, worse still no one at the bank being held responsible and them being so blasé about it is disgraceful. Really incredibly poor.

What bullshit! They have the audacity to reject the application but can't take the time to explain why? Unless he's a secret money launderer or serious crime lord, it's probably nothing serious and you should be able to apply elsewhere. Probably a criteria thing.

NatWest are part of the same family and they initially rejected my daughter because her birth certificate had me listed as billie eilish but mine had me as billie eilish O'Connell. They said I was a different person and they couldn't verify. HMPO were fine with it tho.

Sorry for not coming back and responding, I appreciate all the suggestions and comments. We ended up opening accounts with HSBC and it was a very simple process. They also confirmed that a credit check cannot be undertaken on an individual aged under 18 so I feel a bit better about that.
@Coffeesnob11 thank you for sharing your experience, I think your suggestions about a cap on the number of accounts opened sounds probable given what we can see. We did start the raise a complaint process but DS hasn’t progressed it.
@Oblomov24 and @HillBillieEilish agree, it is just the can’t open an account and can’t tell you why which is so frustrating. I can’t imagine how I would have felt if that was me as an adult as I would be so concerned there was something wrong with my wider financial status.

I have a personal acct with Starling and applied for a small business one - got turned down despite all the details of the application being exactly the same…very frustrating, and glad you got sorted!

Hi @Coffeesnob11 did you ever get a response from Starling about why you weren't able to open a Kite account?* *

We've had the same thing where we went to open one for our DD and the option wasn't there. So far all Starling can tell me is that we didn't meet the eligibility criteria but when I asked what the criteria was (aside from me having to have a joint account and the age of the child which we meet) they cannot tell me and just offered to log a complaint.

I don't expect them to change their decision but I would at least like to know why we're not eligible. I've had to raise a complaint just to try and get an answer, they're not exactly quick at responding though 😶