The Banking Code of Practice acknowledges that customers who receive government concession payments and qualify for a Commonwealth Seniors Health Card, Health Care Card or Pensioner Concession Card (concession card) are entitled to access appropriate accounts. In recognition of the limited financial resources available to these customers—typically known as ‘low-income customers’—they are eligible for basic, no or low-fee accounts.

ASIC’s Better banking for Indigenous consumers project focused on reducing the harm experienced by First Nations consumers in high-fee accounts. ASIC identified the banks where this was most likely to be a significant problem, gathered data on the extent of fee harm experienced by customers, and encouraged the banks to develop more effective processes for moving customers to low-fee accounts. ASIC also asked banks to remediate customers for past fee harm.

While the focus of this report was on First Nations consumers, the nature of the methodology meant that the project also captured non-Indigenous customers on low incomes. As a result of this project, several participating banks have extended commitments to low-income customers nationwide, meaning that many non-Indigenous customers in high-fee accounts will now benefit from low-fee accounts.

Key recommendations

• Improve processes for migrating customers from high-fee to low-fee accounts, including migrating customers on an ‘opt-out’ rather than ‘opt-in’ basis, to reduce the burden on customers in the account switching process.
• Refund or remediate customers who were identified as having experienced fee harm in high-fee accounts while being eligible for a low-fee account.
• Improve promotion and resourcing of the participating banks’ specialist services to First Nations customers, such as Indigenous call lines; and
• Build the understanding of First Nations customers by asking customers whether they identify as being of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander heritage to allow for tailored banking services and message