A Parliamentary committee investigating financial abuse should make five recommendations to make financial services safer for customers, Flequity Ventures Founder and Director Catherine Fitzpatrick says.
Giving evidence today at the opening hearing of a new inquiry, she called for the committee to:
- Recognise financial abuse as a financial crime, equating its tactics and with fraud and scam, and responding with comparable urgency and investment.
- Embed the eSafety Commissioner’s Safety by Design into the financial services regulatory framework, with a positive duty to prevent product and service misuse and a clear warning that this risk – which could, in the worst cases, lead to death of a customer – is material and foreseeable and should be considered by Directors as part of their duty of due care and diligence.
- Establish enforceable customer service standards for victim-survivors of financial abuse and a sector-wide review of privacy breaches.
- Modernise the regulatory framework to specifically include domestic and financial abuse, recognising the risks of misuse of the financial system and barriers to customer safety and support
- Monitor the implementation of anti-financial abuse terms and conditions, and other financial safety initiatives.
“As a former bank executive, I have seen firsthand how products and the shift to digital services are weaponised as a tactic of coercive control, and the devastating impact that financial abuse has on victim-survivors,” Ms Fitzpatrick said.
“I have been part of the finance sector’s response, leading the Commonwealth Bank’s domestic and family violence strategy, establishing specialist teams and catalysing industry-wide efforts to address technology-facilitated and financial abuse.
“My current role as a social entrepreneur involves leading an independent consulting business which aims to disrupt financial abuse and gender bias more flexible, safe and equitable product and service design.
“My submission draws from and builds on my Designed to DisruptTM series, published by the Centre for Women’s Economic Safety and informed by consultation with people with lived and learnt experience.
“Since we launched the first paper in November 2022, more than 25 businesses across banking, insurance, telecommunications, education and technology have mobilised against perpetrators. They have adopted my recommendation to ban the misuse of products and services for financial abuse with an update to their terms and conditions or policies, setting a global standard for protective measures.
“But this is just the start.
“This inquiry offers an opportunity for policy makers, regulators and the finance sector to reimagine products and services to improve financial safety. It’s time to adapt financial services to serve not only those in healthy, equitable relationships but also those at risk of financial harm.”