The order<\/a> was handed down last week (18 June) by Her Honour Justice Bennett, who described HSBC Australia\u2019s contraventions as serious and held that its failures in respect of the ePayments Code were systemic and widespread.<\/p>\nAmong other failings, HSBC Australia admitted that it had taken too long to investigate customer scam reports (an average of 144 days) and did not have adequate controls on its internal transfer system, exposing customers to greater risk.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is one of the first cases of its kind globally and sends a clear message that protecting customers from scams is a core responsibility of banks,\u201d said Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) chair Sarah Court in a statement.<\/p>\n
Inadequate controls<\/p>\n
The ASIC launched a probe into HSBC Australia in December 2024. The regulator found that between January 2020 and August 2024, the bank had logged more than 1,000 reports of unauthorised transactions totalling AU$34.6 million (\u00a318.3 million).<\/p>\n
HSBC Australia has now admitted that inadequate controls on its internal transfer system between May 2023 and May 2024 had exposed customers to a greater risk of unauthorised payments; that it had breached its obligations under the ePayments Code by taking on average four months to finalise cases; and that it failed to set up adequate systems to inform customers how to regain access to their accounts after they had flagged a scam.<\/p>\n
In a press release on its 2024 complaint, the ASIC alleged that the bank had taken an average of 95 days to restore customers\u2019 full access to their bank accounts, with one customer not having full access restored for over a year.<\/p>\n
The bank further owned up to the fact that it had known since May 2021 that there was a growing risk of impersonation scams, where bad actors posed as HSBC representatives, and that those types of scams had largely driven the 380% surge in unauthorised transaction reports between 2023 and 2024.<\/p>\n
Lost savings<\/p>\n
The ASIC has disclosed information on several customers affected by HSBC\u2019s failings, including individuals aged between 25 and 50 who had lost up to AU$50,000 (\u00a326,400) \u2013and in some cases their entire life savings \u2013 to scams.<\/p>\n
Customers were left having to borrow money from elsewhere and take on extra shifts at work, the regulator said, while \u201cothers reported distress, guilt, panic, and the stress of being unable to access their money or accounts\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s outcome is one of the first of its kind globally and the [AU]$35 million penalty ordered against HSBC is the strongest scam wake-up call yet to the banking industry,\u201d said ASIC\u2019s Court. \u201cBanks have been well on notice about the risks of scams for some time. They have now been given a clear message to have adequate controls and ensure their interactions with scam victims help \u2013 not hinder.\u201d<\/p>\n
The order follows HSBC\u2019s implementation of a large-scale remediation programme that has paid out roughly AU$21.5 million (\u00a311.4 million) in compensation to affected customers. The bank has committed to making further payments before the end of July and recovered and returned more than AU$6 million (\u00a33.2 million) in funds.<\/p>\n
A broader trend<\/p>\n
The HSBC case reflects a broader issue. In March 2026, the Australian government\u2019s National Anti-Scam Centre\u2019s Targeting Scams Report revealed that financial losses had exceeded AU$2 billion (\u00a31.1 billion) in 2025, with investment, payment re-direction, romance, phishing and remote access accounting for 60% of total losses.<\/p>\n
While the 2025 numbers are astonishing, they may suggest progress in the right direction, with the country seeing a 29.7% reduction in scam losses since the peak of AU$3.1 billion (\u00a31.6 billion) in 2022.<\/p>\n
Still, it is clear that continued action is needed. In a statement on the report, Catriona Lowe, deputy chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) stressed that \u201cmore needs to be done, quickly and at scale\u201d, particularly given the \u201cincreasing sophistication in scam activity through artificial intelligence (AI) and the industrialisation of criminal syndicates through scam compounds\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The AU$35 million fine has been described by the ASIC chair as the \u2018strongest scam wake-up call yet\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[20667],"tags":[31749,28310,9881,4478],"class_list":["post-68104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hsbc","tag-australian-securities-and-investment-commission","tag-federal-court-of-australia","tag-hsbc","tag-scams"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116794290505436663","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}