Bank sent out poorly worded closure letter and also gave insufficient notice

Categories:

Bank accounts, Closing/Freezing accounts,

Summary:

Casey had three personal accounts at the bank, two of them held jointly with his former wife Tess. He had also had business accounts at the bank, but these were frozen in 2022 when he was made bankrupt. In late May 2025, he received a letter dated the previous month saying the bank would be closing his accounts in early June, apparently due to compliance requirements, and referred him to his local branch. He went to the branch the next day and discovered the bank had already closed the joint accounts. Staff at the branch did not know anything about the letter, but they said it seemed he had done something wrong.

Published:

October 2025

Casey sought further information from the staff member who wrote the letter, but was just told the bank's decision was final. He complained that the bank was targeting him because of his bankruptcy.

Our investigation

The bank told us it had simply decided it no longer wanted Casey as a customer. It acknowledged its letter was poorly worded, and that its reference to compliance problems was wrong. It said it generated the letter in May, so the letter was incorrectly dated. The bank offered Casey $250. He rejected the offer. We continued our investigation and found the bank had failed to give the notice required in its contract with Casey. The bank had also closed the joint accounts ahead of the closure date indicated in the letter, and without further notice to Casey, who was receiving payments into one of the accounts. Casey had been able to open a personal account elsewhere, but not until a week after his accounts were closed. Given the lack of sufficient notice, we found the bank was responsible for the impact of Casey being without an account for a week and recommended the bank pay Casey $1,000 compensation for the stress and inconvenience it had caused him.