Your banking in a relationship

Understanding your banking and what support is available can help you work through challenging life events including economic harm.

Understand how your banking is set up, managed, and accessed

The first place to start is to understand how your banking works.

For people who are single, banking might seem like a straightforward process of transactions – money in, money out – but what if you’re in a relationship or your relationship status changes?

Knowing how your banking is set up, managed, and accessed can suddenly become much more important.

For example:

• Who has access to your money, accounts and credit services?
• What are the limits and restrictions?
• What consents and signatures are required?
• How easy is it to change how things are set up?

Some banking products may work well at a certain time in life, but are not so good if relationship challenges occur.

Things like: 

• requiring two signing authorities to cancel a joint account
• revolving mortgage structures – where repaid portions are available as credit – or accessing additional funds through unarranged overdrafts, without both customers’ approval.

It’s worth taking some time to understand how you manage your money, as some financial challenges may be difficult to address if they are outside of normal banking procedures.

If you need help to understand your banking arrangements, get in touch with your bank.

Before you end an abusive relationship

It’s important to think about your banking if you are ending a relationship where economic harm may be involved.

Before you take action, consider discussing your options with a family violence agency. Ending a relationship can quickly escalate harmful behaviours, especially when family violence is present. 

Sort your banking 

The types of things to think about to sort your banking:

• Ask the bank to link your individual account to your work address or a friend’s address if you want to keep things private. Make sure to get consent from your employer or friend first.
• Reset your PINs and passwords, even if you didn’t share them with your partner.
• For sole control of your personal account, you may choose to disconnect it from the banking app on your phone. It will be less visible and not as easy to access by your partner.
• If you are concerned about privacy when accessing your bank account online – Google Incognito is a browser window that erases your browser history, cookies, and sessions after closing the window.
• If you are using a joint account, speak to your employer about options to redirect all or part of your wages into an individual account.
• If you don’t have a separate bank account, consider getting one. This can give you sole control over selected funds.
• If you are concerned about debt in a relationship, consider having your credit card stopped or lines of credit on joint accounts taken away so no further debt can be added.
• The bank can also freeze money in joint accounts if there is a relationship dispute. This is so debt cannot increase just before you separate.
• Speak to a lawyer or seek legal advice about property law and how it affects cash, debt and other assets.

Keep your ID and documents handy

If you are leaving a relationship or experiencing disputes over money, it can be useful to keep a copy of your identification and personal documents in a folder in case you need them for banking or legal purposes.

Joint or separate bank accounts

There are pros and cons for having joint or separate bank accounts in a relationship.

Having separate bank accounts does not mean that money remains separate if the relationship ends. Money in individual bank accounts could still be considered relationship property under the law.

There are some things you should consider when working out the right bank accounts for your financial future.

Read more about dividing up relationship property – New Zealand Law Society.

Separate accounts

Separate accounts can provide more individual control and autonomy. However, they can reinforce power imbalances by creating a sense of exclusion or mistrust, especially if one partner earns more than the other or is secretive with spending.

Separate accounts can be useful for discretionary spending, that is, money you can call your own.

This can work really well in a relationship when agreed by both parties and used alongside a budgeting plan that includes managing debt and shared bill payments.

Joint accounts

Joint accounts can be good for mutual planning, limiting arguments about who’s paying and determining what things are considered shared expenses.

Putting resources together can simplify things so nothing is left to chance or gets paid twice. It’s easy for each partner to get an overview of total finances.

However, there is a lack of privacy (if you want to make a purchase without oversight), both are liable for any overdraft and one person could empty the account of funds if they wanted.

Being transparent and involving both partners in financial decision-making reduces the chances of behaviours such as financial abuse or financial infidelity (lying, hiding or withholding information from a partner).

Make sure you understand the difference between joint and separate bank accounts from a banking and legal perspective.

Read more about what to consider before opening a joint bank account – BNZ.