Banking industry initiative aims to tackle financial abuse

Westpac is partnering with the Australian Banking Association on an industry-first initiative to ensure products and services are designed to safeguard customers from financial abuse.  

Under the initiative, a Safety by Design toolkit developed by Westpac will be made available to peer organisations so that all customers can be supported regardless of who they bank with. 

‘While it is good for us to build capability within our own organisation, it is even better if we move as an industry,” says Tiffany Lewin, Westpac Head of Vulnerability, Strategy and Governance.

Financial abuse is a form of family violence, where someone exerts power or control over another person. It can include withholding money, controlling the household finances, or excluding someone from financial decisions.

“The toolkit is an amalgamation of resources we’ve rolled out at Westpac over the past 18 months to build capability and confidence in adopting Safety by Design principles into product and service design,” Lewin says. 

For example, earlier this year Westpac introduced new alerts to help identify potential power of attorney abuse. This is commonly when someone who has been given legal control over someone else’s finances uses it for their own personal gain. 

Technology-facilitated abuse is a pervasive problem that affects large numbers of Australians in a range of contexts, including their financial affairs, says eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant. 

“The Safety by Design toolkit is a crucial step towards enabling banks to better protect their customers from these harms. By embedding user safety into the core design of banking products, we can prevent perpetrators from exploiting financial systems to control or abuse others,” Inman Grant says. 

The toolkit better equips banks to anticipate, detect, and eliminate online risks, as well as making digital environments safer and more inclusive for everyone, especially for those most at risk, she adds. 

“By implementing these principles, banks can create an environment that not only safeguards users, but also actively supports customers’ right to have safe access their accounts and make informed financial decisions without fear of technology-facilitated abuse or financial exploitation.”

Westpac protection measures include:

• Stopping abuse in transactions. Customers are prevented from sending inappropriate language in payment descriptions. Customers can report if they receive abuse via online and mobile banking.

• Gambling Block. Customers can apply an instant block in certain gambling-related transactions through Westpac’s mobile or online banking.

• Updated Terms and Conditions for savings, transactions, credit card and personal loan products highlighting a zero-tolerance for financial abuse. 

• Mandatory training for certain employees involved in product management. More than 1,200 have completed the training. 

• Safety by Design is a key principle within Westpac’s Human Rights Position Statement and is considered when the bank conducts a review of its products.

A federal parliamentary inquiry into financial abuse is due to make its final recommendations in December.