The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has released guidelines to support bank account switching reforms. This guidance updates industry codes to reflect the new rules so that financial institutions and consumers can have confidence in their rights and responsibilities when switching accounts from 1 July 2012. 



ASIC has updated both the Electronic Funds Transfer Code (EFT) and the new ePayments Code which will succeed the EFT Code from 20 March 2013. The revised EFT and ePayments Codes will help industry comply with their responsibilities under the changes.

 

As a result of these changes, a financial institution (bank, building society or credit union) is now required to provide a list of regular direct debits and credits to a new financial institution at a customer’s request. 


ASIC Commissioner Peter Kell said the revised codes will help industry understand their responsibilities and clarify what financial institutions need to do to comply with the new switching rules. 



‘We are confident these revised codes will help industry through this change and ultimately make it easier for consumers to move their everyday transaction account from one financial institution to another’, Mr Kell said. 

 

More information can be found here