Earlier today, Commonwealth Bank subsidiaries Commonwealth Financial Planning (CFPL) and BW Financial Advice (BWFA) entered into enforceable undertakings with the corporate regulator, which saw them pay a total $3 million community benefit payment.
In a statement to the ASX, the Commonwealth Bank said in 2014 it self-identified and reported concerns that clients of the two businesses did not receive the annual review of their finances which they had paid for as part of various ongoing service packages.
“CBA then worked with independent experts, Deloitte and EY, to develop and implement a comprehensive Advice Fee Refund program covering the period 2007 to 2015, which involved reviewing approximately 62,000 customer files and making payments of approximately $88 million (plus interest) to affected customers,” the statement said.
Commonwealth Bank chief executive Matt Comyn said the bank acknowledged that it had not met clients expectations.
“We recognise the fact that we have failed customers in our advice businesses over the past decade. These failures have resulted in a range of regulatory actions including [the] imposition of licence conditions and remediation programs,” Mr Comyn said.
“This is unacceptable and we owe our customers an apology for letting them down. Providing quality financial advice is critical for our customers.”
Mr Comyn added that the royal commission’s hearings on financial advice, which commence on Monday, 16 April, will address more instances were client expectations were not met.
“Next week, the royal commission will hear more about issues in financial advice where we have failed our customers and we need to listen and learn from what we hear,” Mr Comyn said.
Will you apologize to the whittaker mcnaught clients as well …as the CBA removed parts of their files to cover up wrong doings by their adviser …time to come clean now….and stop wrecking the lives of these clients and ruining the reputations of independent advisers
As a member of the FPA I’d like to offer apologies as well to the public. You see it’s one of our own members that have let the public down. I’m deeply sorry that OUR MEMBER being Commonwealth Financial Planning has behaved in this manner. When one of the FPA members behaves like this it impacts on ALL FPA members and tarnishes the reputation of those that spent thousands doing a CFP course. Unfortunately the FPA will remain silent on this issue and we’ll have FASEA 11 and even more over regulation. mmm I wonder how serious the FPA will be taken by FASEA.
Thankfully it sends a message to all other members that you can do whatever you want and the FPA will turn a blind eye. I don’t think they should call themselves “professional”. Do you?
Hey IFA, why don’t you use the headline “FPA Member states…we’ve failed our customers”
What’s news, in the quest for distribution the banks have single handily destroyed the last remaining little bit of respect people had for financial planners, a revolving door of planners for clients and thus no service that’s no surprise
You need to look very carefully at the backgrounds of the people running your AFSLs Matt Comyn. If they do not have advice experience and qualifications, why are they in charge of Advisers?