The Supreme Court of New South Wales has dismissed an application by Merciful Group Incorporated over the closure of its account by Suncorp Bank (a subsidiary of ANZ) “on the grounds that this was justified by the bank’s legitimate business needs, being its lack of appetite for the risk involved in continuing to operate the account.”
Merciful is a registered charity founded in 2016.
The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission shows Merciful has revenue and expenses of around $10 million.
Its president and founder Rabih Chamma told the court it was established to provide aid to various countries including, Lebanon, Yemen and the Syrian Arab Republic. Its website says is has also provided aid to Rohingya refugees in Myanmar.
Merciful is run by Chamma and his wife, Fatimeh Charafeddine. They are the signatories to the account.
Merciful has had the Suncorp account since 2019 the judgement of Justice David Hammerschlag published last week relates.
The charity was debanked by St George and also ANZ in March 2019. Merciful applied to open an account with Australian Mutual Bank but was refused. In May 2025, it applied to open an account with Bank of Sydney, which was also refused.
It did, however, manage to open an account with Bendigo Bank in May 2025.
A central element of the Suncorp Bank’s justification for not wanting to do business with Merciful, Justice Hammerschlag wrote, “is that the account was and continues to be used to receive substantial sums of money which are then packaged up into larger sums (often in round dollar amounts) and transferred to a third-party money remitter, often with no description, but sometimes described as “Leb”, “Lebanon”, “Yem”, “Yemen” or “Sy” (meaning Syria) for onward transmission to those and other countries classified by the bank as high risk, and to some of which the bank itself will not transfer money.”
Justice Hammerschlag cited Suncorp’s/ANZ’s obligations under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act and AUSTRAC’s rules, and also APRA’s prudential standard CPS 220 – Risk Management as relevant to the decision.
Paul Gardner, the bank’s Executive Manager, Financial Crime – Strategy & Operations, was the person within the bank who made the decision that Merciful should be exited as a customer of the bank.
“He did so because he formed the view that the continued provision by the bank to Merciful of designated services posed an unacceptable money laundering/terrorism financing risk that could not be appropriately mitigated and managed, having regard to the bank ’s systems and controls for managing such risk” Hammerschlag wrote.
“He approved the recommendation to exit Merciful as a customer of the bank, which led to the Deposits and Card Maintenance team at the bank issuing a notice of termination of Merciful’s accounts.”
The judge concluded: “The bank has the express right to close the account to protect its legitimate interests, being:
(1) its legitimate business needs;
(2) its prudential requirements;
(3) any requirements that are reasonably necessary to protect it against a material risk of financial detriment to it.”