Westpac leads fees-for-no-service compensation

Westpac has paid or offered to pay out the most compensation for fees-for-no-service misconduct since 2016, according to figures from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

Six of Australia’s largest banking and financial services institutions have paid or offered $1.86 billion in compensation to customers who suffered loss due to misconduct or non-compliant advice.

Compensation payments made or offered by the institution as at 30 June 2021

VIEW ALL View all Institution	Fees for no service misconduct		Non-compliant advice
	Compensation paid or offered	No. of customers	Compensation paid	No. of customers
Westpac	$578,441,530	71,498	$51,684,367	3001
NAB	$556,144,345	677,531	80,002,139	2183
AMP	$230,418,976	225,513	$38,892,310	2961
CBA	$169,311,920	57,930	$9,354,027	626
ANZ	$96,969,608	32,916	$44,700,475	2123
Macquarie	$4,628,000	1,105	-	-
Total	$1,635,914,379	1,066,493	$224,633,318	10,894

Source: ASIC

AMP, ANZ, CBA, Macquarie, NAB and Westpac undertook the review and remediation programs to compensate affected customers because of two major ASIC reviews.

ASIC commenced the reviews to investigate:

• The extent of failure by the institutions to deliver ongoing advice services to financial advice customers who were paying fees to receive those services; and
• How effectively the institutions supervised their financial advisers to identify and deal with ‘non-compliant advice’.