Australian banks ignore thousands of customers’ hardship requests

Nonresponses by banks have risen for four consecutive years, even though lenders are legally obliged to consider hardship requests. Photograph: Tero Vesalainen/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Banks are outright ignoring or offering “cookie cutter” responses to a rising number of hardship requests from struggling customers, despite repeated regulatory crackdowns.

Nearly 2,900 customers complained their bank had failed to respond to pleas for assistance in 2024-25, new data from the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (Afca) showed.