ANZ and NAB late to upgrade passbook services

ANZ and NAB may be forced to reconfigure their telephone banking services to include transactional banking functions for passbook accounts.

The coronavirus crisis is expected to have a disproportionate impact on older Australians and medical practitioners are already warning retirees with chronic conditions such as high blood pressure to limit their exposure to busy shopping centres and public transport.

Such medical advice creates a banking problem for thousands of elderly NAB and ANZ customers who can only transfer cash from a passbook to a transaction account by visiting a branch.

Retirees who have Centrelink pensions paid into passbook accounts face having no access to those funds unless the two Melbourne-based banks upgrade their automated telephone banking services to allow transfers between passbook and debit transaction accounts.

NAB and ANZ customers can only pay bills with BPay through a debit transaction account.

The Council on the Ageing yesterday called on ANZ and NAB to upgrade their phone banking services to allow online transfers from passbooks.

"We would like to see the phone banking facility improved for passbook customers at NAB and ANZ," said COTA chief executive Ian Yates.

"If other banks are providing such services there should be no reason why NAB and ANZ can't as well."

The reasons for why NAB and ANZ are unable to offer transfers between passbook and transaction accounts for telephone banking users is something of a mystery, but their existing arrangements appear to reflect longstanding and rather crude efforts to push customers into digital banking products.

NAB telephone banking users can actually obtain details about balances and transaction histories for their passbooks even though the funds transfer function is denied.

Westpac and CBA have been providing linked account services via telephone banking for at least 15 years and also offer staff-assisted services over the phone for passbook holders if they are unable to complete a transaction using their automated services.

An ANZ spokesman yesterday acknowledged that affected customers would need to visit a branch to make transfers.

"We currently do not have a solution for those customers," he said.

NAB was unable to respond to enquiries from Banking Day before the production deadline on Tuesday night.

Data published by Roy Morgan Research last year found that around 17 per cent of bank customers did not use internet or mobile banking platforms. Most were people over 65.