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

00:00Messages 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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