‘I also feel resolve, focus and determination to be part of the change’

According to Commonwealth Bank Group Customer Advocate Angela McMillan, there is one question we all need to stop asking victim-survivors of domestic and family violence: “Why didn’t you just leave?”.

Speaking in front of a packed room at the FW Leadership Summit, McMillan reaffirmed CommBank’s commitment to stamping out financial abuse – one of the most common forms of domestic and family violence in Australia.

“We, at Australia’s biggest bank, recognise how prevalent abuse, and in particular financial abuse, is and that we have a role to play in identifying and preventing it,” she said.

Financial abuse is when money is used as a means of coercion or control in a relationship or after a relationship, to keep someone trapped.

“But because it doesn’t manifest in the same way that, say, physical abuse might, it can often be misunderstood or overlooked,” McMillan added.

According to CommBank’s research, 40 percent of Australian adults have experienced, or know someone who has experienced, financial abuse.

“This means that someone you know, friends, families and colleagues are likely to experience or to be experiencing, this form of abuse,” McMillan told the FW Leadership Summit.

The answer to this abuse, McMillan said, does not lie in the question, ‘Why didn’t they just leave’.

“People in abusive relationships can often find it really difficult to escape,” she said.

“I also feel resolve, focus and determination to be part of the change.”

“They often don’t have the resources, including the financial resources, to be able to get out of the situation themselves, which is why it’s so important that we are there to raise awareness of financial abuse”.

As part of its awareness campaign, CommBank collaborated with FW on the third season of the award-winning podcast series There’s No Place Like Home.

In this series, host Tara Rae Moss shares the real stories of victim-survivors who fled violent relationships but still couldn’t escape their abusers. The series hones in on the heightened risk of abuse after separation for victims of domestic violence.

A hush fell over the audience at the FW Leadership Summit when a trailer for the new season was played.

The audience heard victim-survivors speak about domestic and family violence – and how the abuse doesn’t end when the relationship does, it can morph into even more callous and sinister behaviours.

“Every time that I hear that trailer, and I have heard it many times, I am filled with the emotions [of] anger, frustration, exasperation,” McMillan said.

“But I also feel resolve, focus and determination to be part of the change, which is why I’m proud to be part of Commbank’s Next Chapter program”.

Through its Next Chapter initiative, the bank provides financial assistance to help those dealing with financial abuse, regardless if they are a CommBank customer.

“Once you’re on the longer term path to recovery, our financial independence hub, delivered by our friends at Good Shepherd, can help with financial counseling, access to no-interest loans for critical needs, among other supports,” McMillan said.

To date, this hub has helped support approximately 10,000 participants with financial abuse recovery.

CommBank is also working on ensuring its products and services cannot be used to perpetrate abuse and is teaming up with researchers to find innovative means of preventing abuse from happening in the first place.