A National Bank Account Register. Why doesn't this exist?

We recently launched our beta version of our Invoice Log, where car dealers can store and manage their accounts payable invoices (but more on this later). But it got us thinking, why isn’t a centralised database for bank accounts linked to Australian Business Numbers?

An increasing method of fraud used by criminals and hackers is to simply change the BSB and account number on an invoice. Known as Invoice fraud, according to the ACCC cost Australian businesses over $227 million in 2021.

This can be achieved by hacking into the email program, intercepting emails or can simply be achieved by emailing a business with a fake invoice and assuming a business doesn’t have a robust process of approving invoices (also more on this later).

A client dealership recently received an email where the supplier claimed that their bank account had recently changed and that this ‘urgent’ payment was required before they could release the equipment. One call to the supplier proved that the email was fake. But considering the supplier’s email had been hacked, everything about this email looked legitimate.

Whenever your dealership receives an email relating to bank account details and changes, your accounts department should always validate this with a phone call, however, a more robust national system to check bank account details would make the job of hackers substantially harder. 

The drivible invoice log would be more beneficial for dealers if an API existed to check bank account details for Australian businesses against their ABN. This could be an opportunity for an Australian start-up, however, the natural provider of this service should be the Australian government through the ATO or ASIC. It is already a requirement for Australian businesses to register and keep their details up-to-date. It would also be in their business interest to register their bank account details with the registrar. 

Australian businesses could manually check an ABN on the register to validate bank details and tech businesses such as drivible could utilise an API to make their clients more efficient and safer.

Invoice Log

We recently launched an early version of our invoice log, which allows dealers to save their suppler invoices digitally in the cloud. Suppliers can send invoices directly to the dealers document storage via a unique email address and dealers can manage approvals with a robust and auditable approval process. Early tests show that a dealer accounts payable department is substantially enhanced and more productive.

We have many more features to come, such as alerting dealers to changes in bank account details. But a national bank account register would be beneficial to all businesses.