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Bank Is Now Suspending People For Captions On Transfer Descriptions

Bank Is Now Suspending People For Captions On Transfer Descriptions

Authorities were 'horrified' by the 'scale and the nature' of some of the descriptions people have been using to send money

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie

It's common practice that when you transfer money to your mate, you chalk up the 'description' section with something completely unrelated.

It's been going on for as long as that description section has been in place because, at the end of the day, we just can't be trusted to be sensible.

But it seems like people have been going a little too far with their descriptions and that's caused the Commonwealth Bank to introduce new rules.

Maksym Kozlenko (Creative Commons)

After completing an audit of more than 8,000 customers, CommBank found that there were several low-value transfer amounts that had 'potentially offensive or abusive' descriptions.

While there probably would have been plenty of 'pingaz' and 'naughty dust' in there, the bank was more concerned with descriptions that revolved around 'contact and harass certain individuals'.

CBA General Manager of Community & Customer Vulnerability Catherine Fitzpatrick said in a statement: "After noticing disturbing messages in the account of a customer experiencing domestic and family violence, we conducted an analysis to better understand the problem.

"We were horrified by both the scale and the nature of what we found.

"All genders were sending and receiving these messages, but nature ranged from fairly innocuous jokes using profanities to serious threats and clear references to domestic and family violence.

Matthew Paul Argall (Flickr)

"Our customers should always feel safe using digital banking. These changes will ensure that all customers can continue to enjoy the benefits of digital banking in a safe and secure way and represents our first step to address the issue of technology-facilitated abuse."

Commbank has since introduced its Acceptable Use Policy, which allows the company to stop bank transfers going through or suspend someone indefinitely if they're found to have defamed, harassed, or threatened someone.

The Financial Review adds that Commonwealth will have to be able to prove that the description involved 'unlawful, defamatory, harassing or threatening conduct, promoting or encouraging physical or mental harm or violence against any person'.

If you have been transferring money with descriptions with anything that isn't above board then you might want to stop. It's unclear whether transfers will take a little longer as the bank sifts through every piece of cash that's sent or whether it will have AI to filter through the bad ones.

Featured Image Credit: Beau Giles (Flickr)

Topics: News, Australia