Australian banks are blocking thousands of abusive or threatening bank transactions every year.

Australian Community Media

Domestic and family violence can be perpetuated through bank transactions, according to major Australian banks. Offenders might send one cent transactions with abusive messages when they have been blocked on all other platforms.

Transcript

00:00 Messages like, "I know where the children are," "I just saw you at the shops," "I'm going to kill the dog."

00:06 And these are happening to some people 40 times a day.

00:09 Domestic and family violence can invade all parts of victim survivors' lives,

00:14 and banking is unfortunately no exception.

00:17 Thousands of abusive or threatening bank transactions are blocked by Australian banks every year.

00:22 Perpetrators might send small, even one-cent transactions after being blocked on all other platforms.

00:29 Genuine transactions, like child support payments, might also be used.

00:34 For these perpetrators, women who had been trying to really protect themselves and their children in every other possible way,

00:39 the one thing they have to share is a bank account.

00:42 And so they'd found a way to continue to be coercive, to be intimidating, to make threats to their lives.

00:49 Since 2020, the Commonwealth Bank has used automatic filters to block 400,000 abusive transactions each year.

00:57 While in 2023, National Australia Bank blocked 15,000 threatening transactions a month

01:04 and committed to cutting off offending customers.

01:07 When we think about coercive control, where they're often small, repeated acts,

01:13 so in of itself, one abusive message may not seem like it's a lot,

01:19 but when you have had someone that's been threatened, abused, stalked, isolated, and psychologically controlled over a long period of time,

01:30 then actually, it's not even safe for you to have your day-to-day kind of banking.

01:38 1.6 million women experienced partner economic abuse in 2021 to 2022.

01:45 While the Commonwealth Bank launched a New South Wales police referral program

01:50 and the government announced a federal inquiry into abuse via financial institutions, there is still a way to go.

01:56 Like everything with technological, facilitative domestic and family violence and abuse,

02:04 everything is, you know, these are evolving issues.

02:08 So we need banks to be committed to resourcing and keeping up to date with this kind of abuse.

02:16 [Music]

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