Tipping off

BY MICHAEL SHANG · SIXTEEN YEARS IN COMMERCIAL BANKING · UPDATED 2026-11-01

// THE SHORT ANSWER

Tipping off is letting a customer or a third party know that a suspicious activity report has been made, or that an investigation is under way, in a way that could prejudice it. In most regimes it is an offence in its own right, separate from the laundering it might protect, and it is the reason a banker who has raised a concern cannot explain a delay, a declined payment or a sudden request for documents by referring to it. The right answer to the client is a true one that says nothing: the bank is reviewing the account, and the banker will come back to them.

BASIS  Practitioner judgment from sixteen years in commercial banking, set out in How Bankers Think (Highbank Press, 2026). Every borrower on this site is a composite constructed for teaching, not a client. The market is mid-market commercial lending as practised in New Zealand and Australia; where a convention differs elsewhere, the page says so.