source: pixabay.comKiwibank, the state-owned enterprise New Zealand Post Limited, New Zealand Superannuation, and the Accident Compensation Corporation has become the first bank in New Zealand to allow its customers to put a block on payments to casinos, gaming, and pokies sites from their Visa debit and credit cards.
The move to block gambling sites comes after Kiwibank’s own transactional analysis showed a big-spending spike in online gambling during the lockdowns. The bank offered fee-free, interest-free overdrafts to help people financially manage during the lockdowns. However, staff noted that in many cases, people were spending that overdraft on online casinos and pokies sites.
Hayley Beattie from Kiwibank’s “Make it Right Squad” said:
We noticed there were some customers who were spending that overdraft on online gambling.”
We did see people who were desperate enough to provide something for their family turn to online gambling,” Beattie said.
“Some of them told us they thought they could look at being able to win some money.”
The New Zealand bank’s head of sustainability Julia Jackson reported that customers involved in the pilot of the payment blocking scheme at the end of 2020 said they found the block helpful. More than 75 percent of those in the trial successfully kept the block in place for more than three months.
Kiwibank’s estimated that the average customer in last year’s pilot avoided $10,000 in losses during that period.
Kiwibank believes it is the only bank to offer the gambling block scheme. ANZ spokeswoman Kirsty Martin confirmed that ANZ did not have any controls in place that blocked customers from spending on online gambling sites.
