fbpx
Skip to main content
New Financial Assistance Hub

Support available for customers affected by NSW floods

21 March 2021

Australian banks are supporting communities in New South Wales after torrential rain and floods in parts of the state. 

Floodwaters have inundated towns on the NSW North Coast, Sydney has been pummelled by heavy rain and more is forecast in coming days. 

Australian Banking Association CEO Anna Bligh says banks have a range of measures in place. 

“Once the cleanup begins, it’s important for people to know that they can talk to their bank to seek assistance”, Ms Bligh said. 

“The message from banks is clear: don’t tough it out on your own, your bank is ready to help”. 

“The message from banks is clear: don’t tough it out on your own, your bank is ready to help”.

ABA CEO Anna Bligh

A range of services to help farmers and small businesses

ABA member banks offer a range of services to help farmers and small businesses affected by natural disasters. These can include:  

  • A deferral of scheduled loan repayments  
  • Waiving fees and charges, including break costs on early access to term deposits  
  • Debt consolidation to help make repayments more manageable  
  • Restructuring existing loans free of the usual establishment fees  
  • Deferring interest payments on a case-by-case basis  
  • Offering additional finance to help cover cash flow shortages  
  • Deferring upcoming credit card payments  
  • Increasing emergency credit card limits. 

Get help now. Don’t tough it out on your own.

Latest news

1 / 3
Transcript
Anna Bligh interview on The Project about scams
26 July 2024

Georgie Tunny: Anna Bligh is CEO of the Australian Banking Association. And we’ve heard so many examples of scammers infiltrating customers existing phone message threads from banks. If people can’t trust the bank’s own correspondence, what hope do they have?   Anna Bligh: The stories that you’ve run this week have been absolutely heartbreaking. And I hear… Read more »

Read more
Media Releases
ABA backs national awareness campaign on elder abuse
22 July 2024

The Australian Banking Association (ABA) welcomes the Federal Government’s upcoming campaign to further educate the community about elder abuse.   ABA CEO Anna Bligh said this was a timely opportunity to further raise awareness and shine the spotlight on financial elder abuse.   “Australian banks are deeply conscious of financial elder abuse. They see it playing out every day and have… Read more »

Read more
Current Technical Outage
19 July 2024

Major disruptions to payments systems as a result of the CrowdStrike outage have not occurred and are not anticipated. Impacts on banks and payments systems have been relatively minor, with any disruptions having already been remedied or in the process of being gradually restored. Banks will continue to monitor for any further impacts to services…. Read more »

Read more