Financial abuse (including elder financial abuse)

If there's an immediate threat to your safety, please call the police on 000.

Financial abuse is when someone you know and trust makes illegal or improper use of your finances or property. The abuse may involve actions that are not necessarily illegal.

Financial abuse is a serious and far reaching problem that can happen to anyone. It's often a form of coercive control, a pattern of abusive behaviour used over time to dominate someone and limit their freedom.

In a financial context, this pattern might look like:

• Controlling your access to money
• Forcing or manipulating your financial decisions
• Monitoring your everyday spending

An abuser could be a partner, family member, carer, guardian, friend or even a power of attorney.

Examples of financial abuse include someone:

• Stealing, taking or borrowing your money, debit or credit cards or possessions without your consent
• Limiting your access to your bank account or bank statements
• Forging your signature, forcing you to sign documents that you don't understand, or misleading you about the contents of the documents you're signing
• Pressuring you for money, or borrowing money but never repaying it
• Selling your home or property and using the money for their own benefit
• Monitoring your spending via mobile or online banking
• Refusing to contribute to joint household costs or child-related expenses while keeping their own money 

Financial abuse can have devastating consequences for individuals, families, and communities. It can also have a major impact on a person's financial security and wellbeing.

Elder Abuse is a term commonly used to refer to the abuse and mistreatment of an older person, including older parents. It's also known as 'abuse of older people'.

Your safety is important to us. HSBC won't tolerate our products, accounts and online banking services being used to cause harm or carry out financial abuse.

This type of abuse can happen silently and may include:

• Restricting access to funds: Cutting someone off from money they're entitled to, limiting their independence or ability to leave an abusive situation
• Forcing credit applications: Forcing someone to take out a loan or credit card, or applying for credit in their name without their knowledge or consent
• Abusive payment descriptions: Sending very small money transfers just to use the payment descriptions or text fields to leave abusive, intimidating, or coercive messages
• Refusing to pay joint debts: Unfairly withholding payments on joint debts or mortgages, causing arrears and damaging credit scores
• Stalling bank support: Refusing to cooperate with financial hardship requests, which delays support and increases debt
• Lodging false complaints: Making fake claims to the bank to freeze or block someone's access to their accounts

If you feel that someone has used our products in this way, including if you've received a payment or payments with messages that you find abusive, threatening, intimidating or offensive in nature, even if the payment(s) weren't from an HSBC customer, please report this to us by emailing the Extra Care team at extra.care@hsbc.com.au or call +61 2 9762 9060. We can discuss the actions we can take to help you.

If you're experiencing financial abuse, or worry you might be, we're here to support your. We'll help your safely manage your HSBC accounts and connect you with external community and government support services.

While we don’t offer small business accounts, we recognise retail customers can still be affected by this type of abuse (for example, being named on business liabilities without consent). If this has happened to you, we can help you find specialised advice.

You can reach our Extra Care team on +612 9762 9060 between 9:00am and 5:30pm AEST, Monday to Friday (excluding Australian national public holidays), or email us at extra.care@hsbc.com.au to talk about your situation and find out how we can support you.

Hearing or speech impaired?

If you're deaf, hard of hearing, or have a speech or communication difficulty, you can contact us through your preferred National Relay Service (NRS) call channels. 

Make sure to give the NRS channel our phone number: 02 9762 9060.

For more information about the National Relay Service, visit the Access hub page.

Please note, you'll need to be an Australian resident and have registered with the NRS prior to using the service. International call charges will apply if you're calling the NRS from overseas.

Interpreter services

If English isn't your first language, we can help. When you call the Extra Care team, just say "I need an interpreter". If there isn’t a staff member who speaks your preferred language, we’ll connect you to our free telephone-based interpreter service. It supports over 150 languages, so we’ll be able to talk with you in your preferred language.

Your conversations with us are confidential. If you're concerned about confidentiality, talk to the Extra Care team about how we can keep your conversations and information private.

If you're in immediate danger, please call the police on 000.

Alternatively, you can call the telephone Translating and Interpreting Service (TIS National) on 131 450, let them know your preferred language, and ask them to contact 1800RESPECT on your behalf on 1800 737 732. TIS National is a free service.

To access 24/7 confidential information, counselling and support, we recommend you call 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) or visit www.1800respect.org.au.

If you need an interpreter or translator, 1800RESPECT will arrange one for you.

Alternatively, you can call the telephone Translating and Interpreting Service (TIS National) on 131 450, let them know your preferred language, and ask them to contact 1800RESPECT on your behalf on 1800 737 732. TIS National is a free service.