The Royal Commission into Banking and the effect on the very ordinary Consumer.
To my knowledge my wife and I were not "cheated’ by the bank(s) pre RC i.e. not overcharged or charged for services we didn’t need to have.
This is how the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry (RCB) into banking has affected us.
I recently received a UK cheque in GBP for an insurance policy that had come to term. The cheque was a bank cheque from a reputable well-known international bank. I duly signed the back of the cheque, and as I am disabled, I signed the back of the cheque and asked my wife to pay it into our joint account as we had done in the past. She returned from the bank and said we can’t do it that way anymore (post RCB). We need your husband (me) to complete a mandatory declaration form or for you (my wife) to do it we must see a power of attorney (original) document. I completed the said form and my wife returned to the bank and paid in the cheque. She was then told that (post RCB) the cheque would take up to 28 days to clear as it needed to be verified (the Main Office in Melbourne) with the issuing bank. To prove that it wasn’t fraudulent or destined for terrorism, etc. Finally deposited into our account 35 days later!
I also receive some very small dividend shares from the UK payable 6 monthly in either Euros or GBP, these would be worth less than $10AUD per cheque.
The Royal Banking Commission has meant major changes to how foreign currency is handled. In the days pre-RCB I could accumulate these UK dividend cheques and once they were of sufficient value, I would pay a one-off fee of $AUD15 to clear them all. I could do this just by signing the back of each cheque and my wife could deposit them on my behalf.
Since RCB you can only deposit a single cheque at a time, fill out an individual debit declaration form, correctly dated, wait 28 days to ensure the cheque is genuine and pay a fee per cheque deposited of $AUD 25. None of the dividend cheques that I receive, make it worthwhile for me to deposit them here in Australia.
In one incident post RCB we filled out the required forms and dated them, we couldn’t get to the bank that day (they had closed) so my wife took them in the next day, to be told that the date was wrong and they had to be filled out again with the “correct” date. At that time, we still thought that it was $AUD15 total for all of the cheques we had accumulated and not $AUD25 per cheque. After 4 hours and 3 separate and 4 phone calls, we tore the cheques up!
Has anyone else been adversely affected by the changes the Royal Commission into banking has made, than they were before the Commission deliberated?
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