Earlier this month, Nigel Farage’s bank announced they were closing his accounts. The controversial UK politician had been with the bank for 40 years and was originally given no reason for the now-infamous decision. Since then, Farage has tried unsuccessfully to get accounts at seven other banks.

Farage believes, with good reason, that he has been targeted by the corporate world which ‘had not forgiven him for Brexit’. He claims that losing his bank account makes him a ‘non-person’ and he is not sure he will be able to continue to live in the UK. Three members of Mr Farage’s immediate family have also recently had their accounts closed by UK banks, as have two former Brexit Party MPs. A vicar was also dropped as a customer after criticising his lender’s stance on LGBTQ+ politics.

There’s growing evidence that banking systems are being used to exert social and political control. Remember Canadian banks complying with Trudeau’s request to freeze the bank accounts of the truckers involved in the Canadian Freedom protests?

Alexandra Marshall in Spectator Australia warned earlier that banks have been playing politics, tracking similar action by PayPal and other payment gateways which froze the accounts of journalists. She argued if we don’t do something about this, banking discrimination won’t be limited to political figures such as Farage or high-profile journalists but rather the banks will be coming for you.

Listen up, men. That’s happening right now.

Last week, the National Australia Bank (NAB) announced a plan to ‘cut off’ customers found to be financial abusers, spelling out this means suspending, cancelling, or denying such people access to their accounts.

They call this ‘debanking’ – cutting off the accounts of anyone who is accused of being a financial abuser.

But how will the banks prove they are dealing with actual perpetrators of this abuse? No problem. It seems to be a case of believe women! Here’s the Australian Banking Association (ABA) explaining that their guidelines on financial abuse specify no evidence is required if a woman claims her partner is an abuser:

‘The guideline recognises that banks don’t need legal evidence of domestic violence, such as an Apprehended Violence Order, to be able to offer assistance to customers,’ said the ABA Executive.

What guarantees are there in place that this new power will not be abused or lead to the damage of, for example, an ex-hubby’s credit rating at the hands of an angry spouse? We know that messy domestic situations can be abused by both sides. This banking ploy is not yet implemented, but rather simply recommended by the Centre for Women’s Economic Safety report, Designed to Disrupt, which maps out plans to use banks as a means to tackle suspected financial abuse. No doubt feminists see this as a great idea. Others remain less enthusiastic.

‘Consider the potential to develop a process to make an adverse credit report for a perpetrator of financial abuse which can be made concurrent to correction for victim-survivor, so that there is a material consequence that impacts on the ability to get future credit,’ writes the author, a UNSW Social Science professor.

Let that sink in. What we are talking about here is banks deliberately trashing what is likely to be a man’s credit rating as punishment when that person has not been convicted, charged, and perhaps not even notified of the accusations. Doesn’t that take the cake? It provides a lot of scope for misuse.

That example is for the future, but right now we have one major Australian bank already cutting off men’s accounts and others lining up to do so. These institutions never actually admit that the new apparatus is primarily targeting men, although it is hinted at through the general wording of the proposal which leans heavily on the assumption that women are the main victims of the domestic and financial abuse this system attempts to address. By extension, men will primarily be on the receiving end of the debanking.

The carefully orchestrated campaign enlisting our banks to tackle financial abuse has been promoted by the key organisations within the domestic violence industry which are, in my opinion, shameless in their anti-male rhetoric. Major banks are also known to finance some of these organisations with large donations. Supporting domestic violence networks is one thing, employing real-world financial action against unproven accusations is quite another.

‘This kind of behaviour is a form of domestic violence. It can be an enabler for partners to keep women trapped in abusive and often dangerous relationships,’ said the CEO of the Australian Banking Association and a supporter of the venture.

Women, women, women… Bank promotions on this subject never seem to feature any male victims of financial violence, but tend to include numerous photographs of miserable, downtrodden women. A bit of equality might be nice. Given the competing sensitivities of identity, virtue signalling in this territory demands a very careful tightrope walk.

So, are men being targeted already? It’s hard to tell, but Andrew, one of my key researchers, reports an intriguing interrogation that took place after his partner transferred a significant amount of money into his transaction account, which they’d planned to shift into a share trading account. Since the amount was beyond his normal transaction limit, Andrew called the bank to arrange it. The operator put him on hold and then transferred him to her supervisor.

To his surprise, the supervisor quickly started grilling him about his partner’s transaction, asking about the nature of their relationship, how close they were, whether they had just broken up and other personal questions. Andrew explained they were friends and declined to answer further questions on the topic. He was then threatened with the possibility that both his accounts might be frozen. He passed the phone to his partner and asked her to try to sort it out. After an intense conversation, his partner convinced the supervisor not to freeze his accounts. Andrew then took the phone back and said he wished to lodge an official complaint. It was some months later that Andrew received a call from his bank saying that, after investigation, the bank wished to apologise for what had happened.

There’s no telling what was really going on here. Perhaps the bank suspected Andrew of being a money mule or involved in some sort of scam…? But the intrusive personal questions focussed on the relationship which implies this zealous bank official might have been following the official industry guidelines recommending banks be on the alert for signs they might be dealing with a perpetrator of financial abuse.

Normally, restricting a customer’s access to bank accounts would require a very high bar, such as evidence of criminality. But as this legal analysis from the Centre for Women’s Economic Safety points out, this may no longer be the case. ‘In NSW, recent legislation provides for a new coercive control offence. The NSW legislation criminalises abusive behaviour, including economic abuse, towards current and former intimate partners.’

That might just give the banks the muscle they need to justify their actions, which are certainly pushing the envelope when it comes to appropriate behaviour for a financial institution.

Clearly the banks’ lawyers believe they have found a way through any regulatory or legal hurdles. When I asked a former senior banking lawyer to examine what the banks are doing, he raised a concerning issue: ‘How do these banks defend themselves from charges that these are unfair contract terms in relation to financial products which are banned by the ASIC Act? Under recent amendments to unfair contract terms legislation to take effect in November 2023, a person such as a bank cannot include an unfair term in a standard form contract or rely on one that is already in place. Significantly increased penalties will apply for breach. One would have thought that these unilaterally imposed new terms which impose draconian consequences on affected consumers based solely on the bank’s view of the facts, with no apparent rights to appeal or prevent the action, are the very definition of unfair contract terms.’

You may like to include this vital question in letters of complaint to the big banks, particularly if you are a customer. And to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA).

Please get back to me if you know of anyone who has been debanked. We are very keen to challenge the bank’s activities and need actual cases.

Note, there is an important real issue buried in the bank’s financial abuse initiatives, and that is elder abuse. Financial abuse is the most common form of elder abuse – Australian Institute of Family Studies research shows 2 per cent of elders have suffered financial abuse in the last 12 months, which compares to 1.6 per cent of people suffering this abuse from a cohabiting partner, as found in the ABS’s Personal Safety survey. But most of the banks have other priorities.

When it comes to these new banking guidelines and powers, customers are right to be concerned. Psychologists at the University of Central Lancashire, who carried out the major research available on male victims of coercive control, report financial abuse was a major issue for many of these men: ‘Half of male victims had their earnings controlled as a pattern of abuse which in some cases led to men not being able to purchase food or clothing. Men were also expected to take on the burden of all household finances as almost two-thirds of the female perpetrators refused to contribute to household bills and over half refused to work even if able to. Similar to women, some male victims were prevented from going to work, whereas almost one in three male victims were forced to go to work even when unwell.’

Hmm, can you imagine the banks cutting off the accounts of women who refuse to work or contribute to household bills? That’s clearly not going to happen. This initiative has been introduced without government oversight, parliamentary scrutiny, and community consultation. It must be stopped.

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