ASIC wraps up CBA compensation compliance checks
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has released the final report on the Commonwealth Bank’s (CBA’s) compliance with additional licence conditions that were imposed regarding advice compensation, written by KordaMentha Forensic.
The forensics firm was appointed as an independent expert to monitor the bank’s compliance with the conditions, after the regulatory imposed them on the Australian Financial Services licences of Commonwealth Financial Planning and Financial Wisdom in August, 2014.
The final report found that the bank had complied with the conditions, which required that CBA offer compensation for inappropriate advice that caused financial loss and offer affected customers up to $5,000 to get independent advice from an accountant, financial adviser or lawyer. These were imposed after CBA didn’t apply review and remediation processes to customers of 15 financial advisers, disadvantaging some of them.
KordaMentha Forensic found that the bank had offered a further $2.3 million to 232 clients of five advisers, in addition to $4.95 million already offered to customers of different advisers and $1.9 million to additional customers because of CBA’s review outside of the licence conditions.
This brought the total compensation offered as a result of the conditions imposed by ASIC in 2014 to $9.3 million.
AUTHOR
Hannah Wootton
Recommended for you
Digital advice tools are on the rise, but licensees will need to ensure they still meet adviser obligations or potentially risk a class action if clients lose money from a rogue algorithm.
Shaw and Partners has merged with Sydney wealth manager Kennedy Partners Wealth, while Ord Minnett has hired a private wealth adviser from Morgan Stanley.
Australian investors are more confident than their APAC peers in reaching their financial goals and are targeting annual gains of more than 10 per cent, according to Fidelity International.
Zenith Investment Partners has lost its head of portfolio solutions Steven Tang after 17 years with the firm, the latest in a series of senior exits from the research house.
