Early release fraud concerns around differing bank account details
A number of major superannuation funds have been double-checking second-round early release requests against concerns about fraud in circumstances where members have cited different bank account numbers to those used in first round requests.
Superannuation fund executives have told Money Management that there have been concerns about the possibility of fraud because the instances of member requests citing two different bank account numbers has been running at higher than 10%.
“We would normally expect the citing of different bank account numbers to be at much lower levels and so we have been conducting checks to confirm the identities of the members and their intentions,” a senior superannuation fund executive said.
Concerns about the citing of different bank account numbers have come at the same time as the Australian Federal Police (AFP) confirmation of charges being laid against three women in Queensland.
It said the AFP anti-fraud Taskforce Iris charged three people with allegedly submitting false claims to gain early access to superannuation under the Government’s early release of superannuation (ERS) measure, designed to assist Australians impacted by COVID-19.
It said the alleged offending was identified through lines of enquiry undertaken by a separate Taskforce investigation and following initial analysis, the matter was endorsed as a priority operation by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO)-led Serious Financial Crime Taskforce (SFCT).
It said the action had brought the total number of people charged by the AFP Taskforce Iris to seven.
The AFP said it would allege the group submitted several fraudulent applications, claiming to be other superannuation fund-holders, to attempt to access early release of superannuation payments totalling $113,500.
The superannuation fund concern around the citing of different bank account numbers follows on from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) last week confirming to a Parliamentary Committee that while the ATO was responsible for checking member eligibility, superannuation were wholly responsible for checking member identity and intentions.
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