Westpac adds transaction monitoring to detect power of attorney abuse

Westpac is introducing an additional layer of transaction monitoring aimed at detecting potential abuse of power of attorney arrangements over customers’ accounts.

Power of attorney lets another person make financial or legal decisions on the customer’s behalf [pdf].

The bank’s head of customer excellence Tiffiny Lewin said in a statement that at any time, “as many as 15,000 customers have a power of attorney arrangement in place.”

“While the vast majority of these act legitimately in the best interests of the individual, sadly that’s not always the case,” Lewin said.

“We’re introducing an added layer of transaction monitoring to alert on the early warning signs of misuse of a power of attorney. 

“The new alerts will flag transactions that are out of the ordinary for an account with an active power of attorney.”

The bank didn’t quantify what proportion of customers experienced this kind of financial abuse, but Lewin said it was unacceptable that any such incident occurred.

“It’s unacceptable [that] someone would use their position as a power of attorney for personal gain and Westpac is committed to doing what we can to stamp this out,” she said.

“We’ve invested in this monitoring and we’re optimistic that over time this will make a difference.”

Westpac said it had brought together “three specialist teams” in the background to investigate alerts generated by its systems.

In addition - and more broadly - the bank said it had updated “terms and conditions for its transaction and savings products with a zero-tolerance policy for customers who use the bank’s products and services to engage in financial abuse or account conduct we deem to be unacceptable.”

“This change puts would-be abusers on notice there are serious personal consequences for misusing the bank’s products and services, including warnings or in extreme cases, being exited from the bank,” Lewin said.

“Those consequences can also apply where a power of attorney is found to be abusing their position.”

All major banks in Australia have invested significant efforts in recent years into a crackdown on various forms of financial abuse against customers.

These efforts kicked off in 2021 as banks sought to prevent people from making low-value payments to customers that contained abuse or threats in the accompanying transaction description.