What to do if your bank suspends your account

Firstly, find out from your bank why your account has been suspended. You can then decide how to address this, according to https://bankomb.org.nz.

For example, your account can be suspended because of insufficient funds. In this case, you may need to arrange to repay money you owe before the bank will lift the suspension.

Your account can also be suspended at the request of a third party. This may be where your bank has been notified by someone else about a dispute over the ownership of funds in your account. In these cases, it is not the bank’s role to determine the rightful owner of the funds. The suspension will generally remain in place until you can resolve the dispute with the person claiming the funds. Your bank should help you by clearly explaining the process for removing the suspension.

Your bank does not have to tell you before suspending your account. This is mainly to protect funds as telling the accountholder in advance that the account will be suspended gives them the opportunity to withdraw money.

Your bank must tell you after it has suspended your account. The code of banking practice says banks will advise all account holders as soon as possible when an account has been suspended. This means where there is more than one account holder, the bank must tell each one individually. It cannot rely on one account holder to tell the other(s).

Sometimes a bank may only suspend a certain sum of money in your account, such as when a court order applies to a specific sum less than the total balance of your account.