ASIC has released new guidelines which support the bank account switching reforms.
Under the new changes to the Electronic Funds Transfer Code (EFT) and the ePayments Code, financial institutions will now be required to provide a list of regular direct debits and credits to a new institution at a customer’s request.
ASIC Commissioner Peter Kell said that ASIC ‘are confident that these revised codes will help industry through this change and ultimately make it easier for consumers to move their everyday transaction account from one financial institution to another’.
Under the new codes a consumer who wishes to change from one financial institution to another is able to ask their new provider to request a list of the last 13 month’s regular direct debits or credits from their old provider.
The consumer can then decide which of the regular transactions they would like to switch to their new account. Their new financial institution would then be empowered to provide all the relevant organisations with the consumer’s new account details.
Whilst some regular payments such as internet ‘pay anyone’ and BPAY payments are outside these changes, a large list of payments such as salary, regular utility payments, and pensions, will all be made easily transferable under the new codes.
The revised codes were developed by ASIC with the assistance of consumer and industry stakeholders.