Lenders support victims of abuse

The Bank of New Zealand, and some other lenders, have waived the debts of victims of economic abuse.

AUT senior lecturer Ayesha Scott describes economic abuse as the ‘‘weaponising of money’’ by an intimate partner.

Victim-survivor advocates said it could include a variety of controlling methods, but often included male partners, or relatives, of a woman coercing her to take out loans in her name for their benefit.

Victims often found the consequences linger long after they escape the relationship in the form of debts and damaged credit scores.

But experts speaking at the Economic Harm Awareness Day webinar on Friday said some lenders were moved by stories of economic abuse to simply wipe victim-survivors’ debts.

Jake Lilley, policy officer at financial mentoring agency Fincap, said waiving these debts allowed victims of economic abuse and harm to get out of ‘‘impossible situations’’, where they had debts they could not hope to repay without significant hardship.

Martin King, BNZ customer assist general manager, said the bank was doing just that.

It was only used in certain complex cases and came after the bank had worked with financial mentors, and other victimsurvivor advocates, he said.

Few banks, power providers, and other large companies had specific family violence policies, the webinar was told.

Instead, people who had suffered economic abuse from a partner, or family member, were generally dealt with under traditional ‘‘hardship’’ processes, which the law requires all lenders and power companies to set up.

Lilley said that when creating economic abuse policies, companies had to understand how traumatised victims could be. That could involve companies accepting they had to accept lower levels of proof than they might in other hardship cases.

‘‘Take people at their word about their experience, so they don’t have to repeat over and over again an awful experience in their life and can move on,’’ he said.

Debt waivers had involved the help of support agencies including Good Shepherd, which hosted the seminar.

Internationally, debtor advocate groups, including Good Shepherd, have been working to raise awareness of economic abuse and economic harm.

Economic abuse is a littlerecognised form of family violence, says Nicola Eccleton, manager for social inclusion at Good Shepherd.

A recent study from the University of Auckland suggested it was on the rise, possibly because abusers might see it as a low-risk abuse option, as it was seldom prosecuted or recognised.