Australian and New Zealand ESG Update

CBA tackling abuse via transaction descriptions

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has been looking into the issue of customers making deposits into another person’s accounts with abusive messages in the transaction description field. CBA’s offensive keyword detector blocked over 100,000 transactions, with new artificial intelligence systems blocking 229 unique senders of potentially serious abuse.

The transaction will not go ahead if it contains harassing, threatening or abusive language and the sender will be told to remove the offensive language before the transaction will go ahead. Banking services will be withdrawn if the abuse continues.

Rio Tinto trialling biomass to replace coal

Rio Tinto is testing out biomass sourced from agriculture by-products and purpose-grown crops to replace coal in the steel-making process. This creates a low-carbon alternative to the carbon dioxide released during the traditional steel-making process. Carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere during the process. Rio Tinto will look to commercialise the technology if it is a success.