CBA boss ‘proud’ of scandal response

Ahead of the release of the bank’s results next month, CBA chief executive Ian Narev says he is "proud" of CBA's response to the scandal in its financial advice division, despite delays in addressing customer claims.

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by Alice Uribe - July 22, 2015 4 comments

Speaking at an event in Sydney yesterday, Mr Narev defended himself after being questioned about the length of time it was taking to address claims from customers who were victims of bad financial advice.

“We are actually proud of the way we're now responding through the open advice review program,” he said.

Despite this, Mr Narev conceded that the compensation process was "slow”.

“You've got to accept in the short term you'll wear some criticism for appearing slow, but in the long term you make sure you're putting things right," he said.

“What we weren't doing [was] a good enough job listening to those voices saying actually the experience we had wasn't the right experience and we have more to tell you.”

Registrations for the Commonwealth Bank's Open Advice Review program closed at the beginning of July, but some applicants may not see their claims assessed until the end of 2016.

It has been a year since Commonwealth Bank chief executive Ian Narev opened the scheme, which aims to compensate victims who lost money via its financial planning arm.

Since then, more than 22,000 customers have expressed an interest, with about 7,000 confirming they would like their financial advice reviewed.

However, a CBA spokesperson told ifa at the time of closure that customers may not see their claims resolved this year.

“We expect it will take all of this year and most of 2016 to complete the assessments," the spokesperson said.

With its results due in three weeks, Mr Narev added that the bank remains focused on its long-term objectives.

“We keep our eyes on the long term, that's the objective function, that's what we're aiming towards,” he said.

Mr Narev said that it's not CBA's goal to surprise investors by unanticipated outperformance, but to show consistency.

“We say to ourselves that our goal as an institution is to be successful for our customers and our stakeholders for the long term.

“We do our best to make sure that every time we get to an update on how we're going for the long term, we've done well enough to show consistency, that we're accountable for what we said we're going to do and we're keeping investors’ confidence.”