Australian banks will be required to limit their customer base to people who are alive, as part of a set of stringent changes recommended by the Banking Royal Commission.
Many executives within the big four banks say the requirement for customers to not be dead is unnecessarily draconian, and could undermine profitability.
“In an open market, I really don’t think regulators should be telling us which customers we can and can’t have,” one executive said. “We already do basic credit checks. Do we have to check their pulse now as well?”
He said dead customers had plenty of options to close their accounts if they wanted to. “We have an app, a website, hundreds of branches and telephone banking. I think we should leave this up to the customers themselves”.
The Commonwealth Bank, which currently services 65 million Australians, may lose up to 90% of its customers.
