Commonwealth Bank undisclosed fees parliamentary inquiry, Digi Mart USA News (Australia): Australia’s most powerful banker has locked horns with a federal MP over compensating businesses while leaving low income-earners high and dry. Commonwealth Bank chief executive Matt Comyn faced a parliamentary inquiry into Australia’s big four banks on Friday, a day after the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) sued the bank over allegedly tacking $8.5 million in undisclosed fees to business accounts.
Customers began complaining about the secret levies in 2015, but their cause lay buried in Commonwealth Bank’s terms and conditions since 2006, Mr Comyn said. He admitted the bank had identified the problem “many years later than we should have”, but confirmed it had compensated a percentage of customers “well into the 90s” and had attempted to contact the rest.
For legal reasons, ASIC’s claim pertains only to 42,000 entities affected between 2020 and 2025, but Mr Comyn said Commonwealth Bank had taken refunds back 19 years to when the problem began. The bank will nonetheless dispute some aspects of the financial regulator’s accusations.
Labor MP Ed Husic, who chairs the parliamentary inquiry, suggested the bank had only compensated customers because they knew ASIC was cracking the whip. “First raised in 2015, internal audit in 2016, 10 years later you decide to remediate?” he asked Mr Comyn.
“You say you’re fully remediated for the people you can contact, ASIC announces its action – did you know that ASIC was looking at this?”
He challenged the top banker over fully compensating businesses, but only partially refunding low income-earners it was found to have overcharged back in 2025. Commonwealth Bank improperly raked in $270 million from people receiving Centrelink payments between 2019 and 2024 and was pulled up again by ASIC in July 2025. The bank coughed up $93 million in good will payments, about one-third of what was wrongfully charged.
The committee chair said he had “very deep differences” with Mr Comyn on that decision and asked why the bank had treated low income-earners differently to businesses. “I’ve just got to say to you: till the end of my days, I think CBA has to pay those low-income customers back,” Mr Husic said during Friday’s hearings.
The Commonwealth Bank chief executive maintained the partial refunds to low income-earners were a matter of good will, while the full repayments to businesses were proper because the bank had never had the right to charge them the fees. To explain the delays to refunds, he added it was difficult to identify, compile, contact and compensate customers across hundreds of products, each with terms and conditions and internal security barriers.
“TL,DR: banking is complex,” Mr Husic replied. “T’s and C’s – what a defence.
I really just had a deeply divergent view. We’re thinking of the people involved, Mr Comyn.”
While admitting he risked appearing insensitive, the banking boss said no company could provide sustained services at a commercial loss, adding Commonwealth Bank was failing to recoup the cost of service for about half its retail customers. The bank, Australia’s largest, recorded an $11 billion profit in the year to June 30, Mr Comyn also confirmed during the hearings.
“We’re a big company, I’m not here to boohoo about our level of profit,” he said.
Commonwealth Bank is the last of the big four to receive a grilling from MPs, following National Australia Bank’s testimony on Friday morning. NAB boss Andrew Irvine, a British-Canadian dual citizen, had relayed his shock on arrival at Australia’s “national obsession” with housing, which he argued needed to be shaken off to improve productivity.
