00:00Messages like, I know where the children are, I just saw you at the shops, I'm going to kill the dog.
00:06And these are happening to some people 40 times a day.
00:08Domestic and family violence can invade all parts of victim survivors' lives.
00:14And banking is unfortunately no exception.
00:16Thousands of abusive or threatening bank transactions are blocked by Australian banks every year.
00:22Perpetrators might send small, even one-cent transactions after being blocked on all other platforms.
00:29Genuine transactions, like child support payments, might also be used.
00:33For these perpetrators, women who had been trying to really protect themselves
00:37and their children in every other possible way, the one thing they have to share is a bank account.
00:42And so they'd found a way to continue to be coercive,
00:46to be intimidating, to make threats to their lives.
00:49Since 2020, the Commonwealth Bank has used automatic filters to block
00:54400,000 abusive transactions each year.
00:57While in 2023, National Australia Bank blocked 15,000 threatening transactions a month
01:04and committed to cutting off offending customers.
01:06When we think about coercive control, where they're often small, repeated acts.
01:13So in of itself, one abusive message may not seem like it's a lot.
01:18But when you have had someone that's been threatened, abused,
01:23stalked, isolated and psychologically controlled over a long period of time,
01:30then actually they're kind of, it's not even safe for you to have your day-to-day kind of banking.
01:381.6 million women experienced partner economic abuse in 2021 to 2022.
01:45While the Commonwealth Bank launched a New South Wales police referral program
01:49and the government announced a federal inquiry into abuse
01:52via financial institutions, there is still a way to go.
01:56Like everything with technological facilitated domestic and family violence and abuse,
02:04everything is, you know, these are evolving issues.
02:08So we need banks to be committed to resourcing and keeping up to date with this kind of abuse.
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