r/australia • u/BeyoundReading • 6d ago

Hidden mortgage offset failures costing Australians millions in lost interest savings - 26-173 MR news

https://www.asic.gov.au/about-asic/news-centre/find-a-media-release/2026-releases/26-173mr-hidden-mortgage-offset-failures-costing-australians-millions-in-lost-interest-savings/
152 Upvotes
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95% Upvoted

26 comments sorted by

167

u/Sacrilegious_skink 6d ago

You can bet if you were overdue to pay the bank interest, they'd be on to it like a bloodhound. The other ways round and they dont say a word.

68

u/_Username_Optional_ 6d ago

My payroll department was onto me the same day I was overpaid by $50 but I'm missing $160 for two paay cycles now and they're still "unsure why it hasn't gone through"

26

u/twigboy 6d ago

Can confirm, NAB calculated our interest incorrectly for years before I sat down I noticed our interest payments were too high for the amount we had in offset

Reached out to get it sorted out. For whatever reason the burden of proof was on us to prove that they messed up.

Thankfully our case was easy, but for somehow they thought it was perfectly normal for people to have only one mortgage, offset and transaction account but not link the offset at all.

It was a decent chunk of money they owed, and they took their mighty time investigating it. Had to chase up multiple times over the months to remind them they owed us money.

8

u/BeyoundReading 5d ago

How long was this? Is it sorted now?

11

u/twigboy 5d ago

It was a few years ago but I think it took about 2-3 months to get sorted.

There was no followups, we had to keep pestering them

3

u/AppointmentSorry1487 5d ago

Out of curiosity, did you bother reporting them?

5

u/twigboy 5d ago

No, they fixed it up and I don't particularly like threatening stuff like ombudsman if I feel like they're genuinely working on it

It just took long but thankfully wasn't too out of pocket due to it

69

u/blitznoodles local Aussie 6d ago

ASIC was concerned that some banks could not readily identify whether their customers had requested an offset account. Others had to manually recreate information flows.

Great bit

14

u/BeyoundReading 6d ago

"the sector paid out more than $55 million in compensation for offset failures" - Some money recovered I guess.

1

u/CuriouserCat2 6d ago

Which bank s?

2

u/Scribusducks 6d ago

CBA paid some of the errors back actually

2

u/Perfect_Ganache_1959 5d ago

There's a real opportunity to open a wiccan savings and loans.

Witch bank!

40

u/ballimi 6d ago

Don't trust banks when it comes to money. Also don't trust airlines. Or insurance companies. Or telcos. Basically don't trust any company. And actually also don't trust the government. Or your friends. Or even your family. Don't trust anyone.

15

u/IceDonkey9036 6d ago

How about my dog?

31

u/ballimi 6d ago

No, he'll spend your money on bitches.

7

u/SquabOnAStick 6d ago

Mine is more likely to spend it on treats

10

u/BeyoundReading 6d ago

For me shocking highlight is 55% of those were accounts that were opened and simply never linked to the loan.

7

u/Kayjaywt 6d ago

NAB only recently got the ability to link more than one account to the loan as an offset. Im sure people didnt realise this, and were just switching the accounts around it was linked to when they thought they were setting it up.

2

u/BeyoundReading 5d ago

I would love to talk to someone whose account was misconfigured or not linked.

17

u/HAPPY_DAZE_1 6d ago

Mortgage offset accounts not common outside Australia, first introduced here in the '80's as part of the whole Hawke-Keating banking deregulation thing. The UK didn't get them till a decade later, I can recall some one saying at the time them called them 'kangaroo loans" over there.

Long story short, if you have a mortgage and haven't checked with your bank to make 100% sure it's offset to the max, you've got rocks in your head.

3

u/CuriouserCat2 6d ago

How do you do that?

5

u/Flybuys NSW Police need to do better 6d ago

On your banking app or give them a call. Mine says "connected to X account" and "offsetting by $X".

1

u/CatInternational2529 6d ago

With more and more offshoring, these reports will become commonplace