CommBank's compo deal dubbed "empty" and "too slow"
Not everyone is buying the Commonwealth Bank’s offers of compensation and more reviews, as its financial advice furore continues.
Commonwealth Bank chief executive Ian Narev offered his apologies for a decade during which ‘rogue’ planners deprived thousands ordinary people of millions of dollars.
In a public address on Thursday, Mr Narev said that it was “never too late to do the right thing”.
“We're here today because we ultimately, having listened to the sentiment, looked at our vision to secure and enhance the financial wellbeing of people, businesses and customers and asked ourselves: ‘What is the right thing to do?’.”
CBA has decided the right thing to do consists of giving free assessments for customers who received advice from Commonwealth Financial Planning and Financial Wisdom between September 2003 and July 2012.
If it is then found that the customer was given poor advice, an “independent customer advocate” (funded by CBA) will come up with a compensation offer.
If a customer feels their compensation offer is inadequate, the bank will allow them to appeal to a second independent panel, which can bind CBA to a new offer.
No customer will be bound by either review, and have the option of taking their claim to the Financial Ombudsman Service, or other legal channels.
CBA’s compensation scheme has been judged as inadequate by some, and totally meaningless by others.
Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey - whose mother-in-law was caught by CBA’s rubbish advice - said the bank took too long to act.
“Clearly the Commonwealth Bank was just too slow to get to this point, and a lot of the anxiety could have been averted if they had moved more quickly,” he said.
Former Senator Mark Bishop, who chaired the Senate investigation to shed light on the issue, said Commonwealth’s response was “half-hearted” and “full of empty rhetoric”.
“We're not satisfied the culture's changed,” Senator Bishop said in an interview with the ABC.
“They haven't yet disclosed the number of clients affected, the totality of losses, the amount of files reconstructed only partly.
“They haven't yet written to all affected clients. They haven't yet shifted all of the advisors who were engaged in malfeasance and fraudulent practices.”
He says some of the staff behind years of rorting have actually been promoted in the meantime.
“Not only do we know they haven't gone, we know that they have remained in the bank, that they've been the subject of review, they've been the subject of promotion.
“The people who engaged - or some of the people who engaged in the more critical areas of fraudulent activity are still there. How can they possibly now consult with their former clients, review the files, offer sound advice?”
Corporate risk specialists at the Governance Institute of Australia have told media outlets that there should still be a royal commission, as the problems are not limited to the Commonwealth Bank.
“What about the rest of the industry and every other financial planning business that gets off scot-free?” asked the institute's chief executive Tim Sheehy.
“There are systemic problems, not just at CBA but in the financial advisory industry generally, relating to professionalism, expertise and conflicts of interest that need to be fixed urgently,” he said.
Consumer group Choice has issued a statement questioning the sincerity of the bank's apology.
They say it cannot mean much, given that CBA is a central figure (along with other major financial institutions) in the push for the winding-back of current Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) legislation.
“Just a few weeks ago the Commonwealth Bank wrote to the Government calling for lower standards for financial advisers – this action does not match today's apology,” Choice chief executive Alan Kirkland said in a statement.
Regulations introduced by the Federal Government came into force this week have reduced the requirement for planners to act in a client's best interests, and Choice says CBA was a big part of the lobbying movement for the change.
Commonwealth’s website for the review process is accessible here.