Inside Money: Account portability exciting, Dutch claim

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Any minute now the Australian government is due to hand down a report on bank account number portability.

Are you excited?

The Australian Treasury was when it commented last year that bank account portability could "ultimately provide consumers with a personalised, transferable account number to which all their direct credits and debits attach, and which moves with them when they switch".

Don't expect any such wild emoting from the man who headed the portability study, though. Bernie Fraser, former Australian Reserve Bank governor, can contain excitement.

But Fraser's dogged anti-charisma has made him a trusted financial figure across the Tasman in an industry that swarms with slicker animals.

The big banks, of course, hate the idea of account portability while the battlers like Rabobank are campaigning for its introduction.

"The major banks have effectively put consumers in handcuffs by erecting barriers to switching bank accounts," Greg McAweeney, RaboDirect Australia general manager, claimed in a press release.

All right, so Rabobank is a giant Dutch bank (24th biggest in the world, according to this report) and not to be pitied, but it does play the role of underdog in Australasia.

Early reports indicate that Fraser is leaning towards a Dutch point of view.

As far as I could figure out, the Dutch method is really a 13-month transitory system for bank accounts rather than true portability.

At least the Australians have put it on the official agenda. Former Kiwibank chief, Sam Knowles, floated the idea here in 2009 to general apathy.

Maybe we can get Bernie Fraser to gee-up some enthusiasm here.