Within 24 hours, a piece of news attracted attention in the Chinese circle!
Some social media accounts have gone viral with the language "Australia's largest federal bank, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), has declared bankruptcy"! It has aroused great concern.
The accompanying picture even confuses CBA with Bank of America in the United States, causing many Chinese Australians to panic and hurry to check their accounts.
Let's take a look at the details...
1. The CBA of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia was rumored to be bankrupt
Yes, a large number of social media accounts have published the news of the collapse of Australia's largest bank, the Commonwealth Bank.
Many of the accompanying pictures are still a picture marked "Bank of America", but in the accompanying text, it is asserted that this is the Commonwealth Bank of Australia CBA, which... Clearly confusing US and Australian banks.
In addition, many accounts directly posted a picture of an Australian train station, with the narration saying "The Commonwealth Bank of Australia went bankrupt, and countless Chinese accounts were shut down" and other exaggerated remarks!
Is this true? After our investigation, we found that...
Not...
These rumors, which are made out of nothing and turn black and white upside down, have seized the opportunity to attract much attention for self-media who are keen on online marketing.
They deliberately exaggerated the facts and fabricated panic remarks such as "Australian banks began to harvest Chinese depositors' funds" and "a large number of Chinese accounts were blocked" to create panic among some netizens who did not understand the actual situation in Australia.
People who live in Australia or have relatives and friends in Australia can see through this at a glance, this is an outright rumor.
It also led to many Chinese people checking their CBA accounts, and even caused chaos...
However, for some domestic people who do not know much about Australian banks, this kind of "revelations" from a large number of sources can easily be misled.
Spreading rumors with one mouth, refuting rumors and breaking their legs, some gullible people are angry and applauding the CBA's "bankruptcy" under the relevant video, which shows the serious negative impact of rumors on ordinary people.
People living in Australia know that CBA, one of Australia's four largest banks, is unlikely to go bankrupt easily.
Second, it is true that many Australian accounts have been suddenly closed...
While the CBA closure is not enough, with the advent of the digital age, bank accounts have become an integral part of people's daily lives, and a long-time customer of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), Tara Zaw, has recently experienced a dispute with the bank.
Tara Zaw, a veteran customer at the bank for seven years, was left confused after receiving text messages, emails and letters informing her that her account had been "suddenly" closed.
Faced with the inexplicability of the bank's decision, she felt the resentment of being ignored: "I felt like I wasn't being treated like a human being. ”
The trigger for this mysterious incident was purportedly a "business decision", but the banks were secretive about the specific reasons for the closure.
Tara Zaw walked into the local Melbourne branch to seek an explanation, but even in person, the bank could not give a convincing reason.
For Tara Zaw, the immediate consequence of the closure of the account was the inability to make payments and transfers in everyday life.
She had transferred most of her funds before her account was closed, but some of her money was still held in it. This undoubtedly brought her great pressure and anxiety in her life.
Even more troubling, however, is why she doesn't understand why transferring money from her home country, Myanmar, is a problem.
As a person who regularly receives money from her family in Myanmar, she has repeatedly explained to the bank the legality of the money. However, all this seems to be to no avail.
While the Australian government has imposed some sanctions on Myanmar, these were lifted as early as 2012.
However, Tara Zaw was still puzzled by this, and she did not understand why these transfers raised suspicions from banks.
In this digital age, the closure of a bank account is not just a transaction, but a core issue in personal life and trust.
Her story raises questions about the logic behind banks' decision-making, as well as the rights and guarantees of individuals in the digital financial system.
Recently, a series of strict measures taken by Australian banks to prevent customers from being deceived have aroused widespread dissatisfaction and questions among the Chinese community.
From the scrutiny of large-value transfers to the temporary freezing or closure of accounts, many Chinese say that their normal financial activities have been excessively restricted and suspicious.
In fact, when doing business in banks, many Chinese have witnessed their compatriots in a similar predicament.
When a Chinese partner was handling cash business at NAB Bank, he encountered another Chinese who asked for a transfer of 200,000 Australian dollars, but was "bombarded in turn" by the bank staff for review and confirmation.
Even though the Chinese repeatedly protested that "this is my own money", the bank took a tough stance and finally found that the receiving account for the transfer was a fraudulent account.
What's more, many Chinese accounts have been forcibly frozen or closed by banks after making normal financial behaviors such as small transfers, currency exchanges, and consumption, for a variety of strange reasons.
For example, someone just transfers 100 Australian dollars between friends and suffers; Someone spends only a few hundred dollars but is suspected; Others had their accounts emptied of just a few thousand deposits.
In this regard, many Chinese people expressed their inexplicability and questioned that the bank's practice had seriously infringed on the rights and interests of customers.
Famous writer Crispin Rovere once complained on social media that he only wanted to withdraw 2,000 Australian dollars from Westpac Bank, but his account was blocked and he had to be questioned.
Banks mostly take timely control measures against suspicious transfers on the grounds of "anti-money laundering" and "anti-fraud". For example, CommBank plans to limit the total amount of transfers to no more than $10,000 per month for accounts linked to cryptocurrency trading. However, this practice has also been strongly criticized by consumer rights groups, who have been accused of failing to prevent it.
In fact, Australian banks do face tremendous pressure to deal with fraud.
According to the Banking Association, Australians lost more than $3 billion to fraud in 2022.
In order to better track and curb fraudsters, a number of banks have also jointly built a fraud report exchange platform.
In the face of this "power" struggle between banks and customers, we hope that both sides can strike a balance between crime prevention and protection of people's rights, so that financial security can be maintained while respecting and taking care of the legitimate needs of each customer.
Third, the Bank of Australia did not move, and the exchange rate fell unexpectedly
Just yesterday, the Reserve Bank of Australia held a meeting and decided to keep the cash rate unchanged at 4.35%, in line with market expectations.
However, surprisingly, the exchange rate of the Australian dollar against the yuan did not rise slightly as expected, but fell significantly.
A number of financial institutions have previously predicted that in view of the rebound in inflation, the RBA will not only not cut interest rates this year, but may also raise interest rates again.
Despite this pause, it is clear that the central bank still has the potential to raise interest rates further in the coming months.
Financial institutions are also basically consistent in their estimates of the timing of the first interest rate cut, believing that the RBA's interest rate cut may be postponed to 2025.
Therefore, although there is no interest rate hike this time, there is no interest rate cut, coupled with the current weakness of the Australian economy and other factors, which caused the exchange rate to perform unexpectedly.
Fourth, the mortgage pressure is soaring, and the first buyers of the post-90s generation in Australia are shouting collapse
As a direct victim of Australia's soaring interest rates, the experience of Maddie Walton, a post-90s homeowner, has become a portrayal of countless people.
When she bought a house at a low interest rate in 2021, she only had to pay back $550 a week, which has now soared to almost $1,000, accounting for nearly 80% of her income.
In order to pay off the mortgage, she had to work 70 hours a week, take on multiple part-time jobs, and rent out the master bedroom to the second bedroom.
Data shows that about a quarter of Australian homeowners are now concerned that they may be forced to sell their properties due to high interest rates.
High interest rates are putting a huge amount of pressure on the average homeowner.
The banking community has also warned that more homeowners may face difficulties as interest rates are likely to continue to rise.
To settle down in Australia, in addition to considering whether the down payment is sufficient, it is also necessary to weigh whether you can afford the soaring cost of borrowing in the future.