Have you seen any extra money pop up in your bank account? At least two million low-income Aussies have begun receiving payments from their bank after a directive from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
ASIC found that ANZ, CBA, Westpac, Bendigo Bank and Adelaide Bank all kept thousands of low-income customers in accounts with unnecessarily high fees. ASIC says the banks should have identified these customers and moved them to lower-fee accounts.
As a result, the banks have been ordered to refund customers the excessive fees charged, and news.com.au is reporting some customers are seeing the money hit their accounts now. How much you receive will depend on what fees you were charged.
Alan Kirkland, ASIC commissioner said the banks had caused financial distress through avoidable fees and complicated bank processes, often creating barriers for regional and remote consumers.
“Banks knew that many of these customers on low-incomes were in inappropriate high-fee accounts, and it has taken ASIC’s intervention to force them to act,” he said in a statement.
“Before our review, most banks only provided their customers with difficult ‘opt-in’ processes for switching to low fee banking options, including forcing some consumers to travel hundreds of kilometres to their nearest bank branch.”
Do you bank with any of these banks? Have you received any money?
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