Indigenous bank customers are paying up to $3000 per year in overdraw fees, according to a review by corporate watchdog ASIC.
The review examines the cost of high fee and low fee transaction accounts offered by Australia’s major and regional banks.
It’s found many Indigenous customers are in high fee accounts despite being eligible for a low fee basic account.
More than 110,000 bank customers living in an area with a higher than average proportion of Indigenous people and receiving AbStudy payments were in high fee accounts.
Collectively, these customers paid more than $6 million in fees annually.
ASIC commissioner Danielle Press says they have written to banks telling them to improve the situation for Indigenous customers.
