Vulnerable Australians are being failed by the financial system, with a parliamentary committee finding the banking, insurance, and lending systems were being weaponised. Source: The Australian.
A report tabled yesterday revealed widespread misuse of the financial system by abusers, along with a failure of financial services companies to identify vulnerable consumers.
A suite of 61 recommendations calls on the financial system, governments, and key operators in the sector to make a number of changes to protect vulnerable Australians, including a demand to punish abusers sending abusive messages with electronic cash transfers.
The report finds financial abuse was making it harder for people to leave violent relationships, as well as isolating them after leaving their partners.
Abusers are also misusing the financial system to victimise former partners or children, targeting them with harassment and threats or trapping them in costly financial commitments.
Labor senator Deborah O’Neill, who chaired the committee investigating the financial abuse, said the financial system was allowing abusers to misuse their systems, warning of a “raging epidemic that ruins the lives of those it affects”.
“There are the men who perpetrate financial abuse, but there are also the men and women in the corporate world who for too long have been blind to the damage they facilitate,” Senator O’Neill said.
“Banks and financial institutions can and should be on the front lines of identifying and stopping financial abuse. They have enough data and digital capacity to do so. It has to become a priority.”
The committee called on the financial system to proactively identify and support people facing coercive financial behaviour and abuse.
Among its recommendations, the review would require lenders to “take reasonable steps to be satisfied that a borrower and any guarantor is not experiencing financial abuse”, after inquiries highlighted a number of people who had been locked into costly loans by abusers.
The report also calls for a trio of Codes of Practice, governing the banking, mutual, and buy now pay later sectors to be amended to recognise “vulnerable customers” and require banks to identify and support abused customers.
FULL STORY
Parliament reveals abuse of banks, insurers, super funds in domestic violence scourge (By David Ross, The Australian)
