In this case-control study of bank customers, those who disclosed a mental health condition differed from controls across a range of financial indicators up to 36 months before disclosure, with similar patterns across conditions.
Key Findings
Results
Individuals who later disclosed a mental health condition to a UK bank showed differences in financial functioning from matched controls up to 36 months before disclosure.
Case group: 18,428 individuals with bank-recorded mental health disclosures between January 2019 and August 2025; control group: 64,229 individuals matched 1:3.
Mean (SD) age was 41.5 (13.9) years in cases and 40.9 (14.5) years in controls; 56% were women in both groups (10,357 and 36,052).
331 monthly financial indicators were used to capture financial functioning.
Results
Cases had higher welfare-related income, including disability benefits, than controls before disclosure.
Posterior mean estimate for disability benefits was 0.80 (95% CrI, 0.78-0.83).
Results
Cases showed greater financial distress than controls before disclosure.
Credit scores were lower in cases: posterior mean -0.52 (95% CrI, -0.55 to -0.49).
Overdraft use was higher in cases: 0.49 (95% CrI, 0.47-0.52).
Results
Cases interacted with the bank more frequently than controls before disclosure.
Telephone banking use showed a posterior mean of 0.56 (95% CrI, 0.53-0.58).
Results
Cases also showed higher cash use and reduced spending on self-care and recreational activities.
These additional differences had standardized differences of ≤0.4 SD units.
Results
Most variation in case-control differences was attributable to the financial indicator, not the specific mental health condition, indicating broadly consistent patterns across conditions.
Variation across financial indicators: SD 0.11, 88% of total variance.
Variation explained by condition: SD 0.01, <1%.
Indicator-by-condition interaction: SD 0.04, 12%.
A 2-stage Bayesian hierarchical model was used to decompose variance.
Conclusions
The authors conclude that banking data may provide objective measures of financial functioning to inform support strategies in banking and clinical contexts.
The study used deidentified banking records rather than survey or experimental data.
Analyses were conducted between July 2025 and March 2026.
What This Means
This study looked at anonymized records from a major UK bank to see whether people's financial behavior looked different in the months and years before they told the bank about a mental health condition. It compared about 18,400 customers who disclosed a condition with about 64,200 similar customers who did not. Differences appeared as far back as 36 months before disclosure.
Before disclosure, people who later disclosed had more income from disability benefits, lower credit scores, and more overdraft use. They also contacted the bank more often, for example by telephone, used more cash, and spent less on self-care and recreation. The patterns were largely similar across different mental health conditions, with differences between conditions accounting for very little of the variation.
This research suggests that everyday banking data could offer an objective picture of financial difficulties linked to mental health, which might help banks and health services think about how to offer support. The study shows associations in people who chose to disclose to their bank, so it does not show that financial changes cause or predict mental health conditions in an individual, and it may not represent people who never disclose.
Trendl A, Bremner G, Harrison J, Llewellyn D, Leake D. (2026). Financial Functioning Before Mental Health Disclosure to a Retail Bank.. JAMA network open. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2026.41077