The complaint stemmed from when Ravi’s wife, Morgan, was terminally ill in hospital. The bank noticed Ravi had tried to access one of her bank accounts, which he had no authorisation to operate. It arranged for Ravi to be added as an account holder to that account. The bank sent the forms to the hospital for Morgan to sign.

Several months later, Morgan died. Ravi discovered he had been added as an account holder to her transactional account, but not to her term deposit accounts. This meant the term deposit funds formed part of Morgan’s estate, and Ravi would have to go to court to determine which family members were entitled to the money. If he had been added as an account holder to the term deposit accounts as well, he would automatically have become owner of the money in them upon his wife’s death.

Our investigation

Ravi complained that he had asked the bank to add him to all accounts but it had not done so. The bank maintained it was instructed to add him only to the transactional account, and it was Morgan alone who could authorise his access to the other accounts.

We reviewed the account mandate Morgan signed and noted that it listed only the transactional account. No access to other accounts was changed.

Outcome

We told Ravi it was unlikely we could consider the bank had failed to follow Morgan’s instructions. Ravi accepted this, and the case was closed.