{"id":17279,"date":"2021-04-27T15:49:57","date_gmt":"2021-04-27T15:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=17279"},"modified":"2026-04-23T20:02:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T23:02:34","slug":"australian-bank-launches-app-to-block-online-gambling-transactions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/australian-bank-launches-app-to-block-online-gambling-transactions","title":{"rendered":"Australian bank launches app to block online gambling transactions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Australian bank Westpac is releasing an app to block online gambling transactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Australia.- The Australian<\/a> bank<\/strong> Westpac<\/strong> will allow its customers to block online gambling transactions <\/strong>with a new app. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Launched, two weeks ago, the app has already been used more than 2,500 times, <\/strong>the banks says. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The app works both on mobiles and desktops. It prevents customers from making transactions with an online gambling site using debit and credit cards that belong to the Mastercard franchise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although different financial entities have applied their own measures to stop online gambling<\/a> <\/strong>transactions, Westpac says its app is a further tailored solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anne Ruston, minister for amilies and social services<\/strong>, said: \u201cWestpac\u2019s digital gambling block will give Australians a convenient, sensible, and immediate way to manage their spending and minimize gambling-related harm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is great to see that groups in the industry have identified that gambling is a serious cause for concern and are taking steps to let their customers regulate the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Catherine Fitzpatrick, Westpac director of customer vulnerability, <\/strong>stressed the importance of the app at a time whenonline gambling addiction increased due to the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said: “We have seen through COVID-19, as an industry that there have been a lot more people turning to digital (gaming) and a lot more people have been gambling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe new feature complements our existing service where customers can also call us to request a gambling block to be applied to their card to stop certain transactions, including at casinos, sports betting agencies, and online gambling.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australian bank Westpac is releasing an app to block online gambling transactions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17286,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Australian financial institution Westpac has launched a digital application enabling its customers to self-exclude from online gambling transactions via Mastercard debit and credit cards. This initiative, which has seen rapid adoption, aims to mitigate gambling-related harm, particularly in the context of increased digital gaming during the COVID-19 pandemic. The move is supported by government officials and Westpac's customer vulnerability director, highlighting a growing trend in financial sector responsibility.","focusai_entities":"Westpac, Mastercard, Anne Ruston, Catherine Fitzpatrick","focusai_location":"Australia","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.95), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (0.9), affiliate_publisher (0.7), product_ux (0.7), marketing_crm (0.7), payments_fraud_aml (0.95), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.95)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"GGR Impact?","query":"What is the projected impact on Australian iGaming Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) and Net Gaming Revenue (NGR) following Westpac's implementation of this transaction block?"},{"label":"Regulatory Precedent?","query":"How will this initiative influence the regulatory landscape for responsible gambling mandates across other Australian financial institutions and potentially other jurisdictions?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[160,153],"tags":[289,4138],"class_list":["post-17279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-igaming-news","tag-australia","tag-online-gambling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17279"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17309,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17279\/revisions\/17309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}