What you need to know about the new SMS rules

At Heritage Bank, protecting your financial security and keeping your personal information safe is a top priority. 

From 1 July 2026, businesses and organisations are required to register their SMS Sender ID – the name from which they send text messages to customers – if they send text messages with an organisation name at the top of a message. This is part of new anti-scam protections being introduced by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). The aim is to help people identify legitimate messages from fake ones and scammers. 

To ensure a high level of security and authenticity, we are reinforcing our official communication channels. Moving forward, all official text messages from Heritage Bank, such as security alerts, one-time passwords (OTPs), and transaction updates will be sent using our verified SMS Sender IDs.

What is an SMS Sender ID?

An SMS Sender ID is the name that appears at the top of your text message thread, showing who the text is from. Official messages from us will always appear under our registered name, e.g. PeopleFirst, PeoChoiceCU or Heritage. Utilising a verified Sender ID helps protect our communication channels from spoofing and ensures our legitimate messages are easily identifiable.

Any text messages you receive from an unregistered sender ID will be labelled as ‘Unverified’. Examples of what unverified messages will look like from 1 July has been provided by ACMA here.

How does this impact you?

Depending on your mobile device and network provider, messages from our new Sender ID may appear in a new text conversation thread rather than your existing history with us.

This change will not affect the delivery of your important alerts, verification codes, or account updates.

What do you need to do?

You don’t need to take any action. However, as a standard security reminder, please keep the following best practices in mind:

• Verify before acting: Heritage Bank will never send you an SMS asking for your full online banking passwords, PINs, or sensitive personal information.

• Do not click suspicious links: If you receive a text message containing a link that feels unexpected, do not click it. Always log in securely via our official mobile app or website.

For more information about our anti-fraud measures, please visit our Scam alerts and fraud protection page. 

We're here to help

If you have any questions about this update or notice any suspicious activity on your account, please contact us directly. 

Please be advised our Heritage Visa/EFTPOS secure OTPs come from +61 481 073 439 and will soon come from the VCASAUTH sender ID.