Greens agitate over account switching
The Greens will seek to introduce a bill into the House of Representatives today that would force banks to re-route all direct debits and credits to customers' new accounts for 13 months after they changed banks, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.Mechanisms to promote account portability are already under review by Treasury, which was due to receive a report from Bernie Fraser, a former governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, on policy options last week.Greens MP Adam Bandt told the SMH that the measures proposed in his bill would be cheaper for banks to implement than full account portability.The bill also covers the regulation of home loans and requires banks to refund the outstanding value of any lenders' mortgage insurance policy when customers refinance.