Overview
- ASIC published a review Wednesday that examined offset-account practices at eight lenders and found more than $55 million paid in compensation to customers for failures between September 2023 and August 2025.
- The regulator analysed data from about 204,000 home loans and identified hundreds of problems driven mainly by manual setup and re-linking errors that banks failed to detect.
- ASIC highlighted severe individual harms, including cases where customers were overcharged more than $17,000 and one who paid over $3,500 in extra interest in roughly a month.
- Banks and their industry body say over 99% of offset accounts work correctly and that remediation and compensation programs are under way, but ASIC expects further redress because controls remain weak or inconsistent.
- Consumers are advised to check that their offset account is properly linked to their mortgage using bank apps or statements, keep written records of requests, and escalate unresolved complaints to AFCA.