CASHLESSNESS

Banking sector wants consumers to pay for online fraud

Currently, banks reimburse consumers the money they've lost in so-called email "phishing" attacks, or from mistakes made during online transactions. But the sector's now lobbying the Australian financial services watchdog, ASIC, to shift responsibility from the banks to consumers.

The Director of CARE Financial Counselling Services, David Tennant, says banks are encouraging customers towards online banking to save costs.
DAVID TENNANT: They make some significant cost savings in consumers doing that rather than physically going into branches and so on. To think that you then reverse that course of savings by passing the risk for that transaction onto consumers just seems plain unfair to me.
JENNIFER MACEY: He says banks are better equipped to protect consumers from online and internet fraud.
DAVID TENNANT: It's now almost an entire occupation in itself to try and keep up with the new problems that you face in an online environment and to expect that average consumers are going to be able to do that when industry itself is struggling with it, I think is a bit rich.