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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