Original article by Angira Bharadwaj
The Australian Financial Review – Page: Online : 24-Dec-25

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has belatedly agreed to provide a partial refund to low-income customers who were charged high fees despite being eligible for low or no-fee bank accounts. A report from the Australian Securities & Investments Commission in mid-2024 found that welfare recipients had paid $270m in "excessive" fees to the CBA since 2019. ASIC also found that Westpac, Bendigo Bank and the ANZ Bank had charged excessive fees, although they agreed to provide a refund to affected customers. CBA has now advised that it will provide $68m worth of ‘goodwill’ refunds to these customers in early February; it had already paid about $25m in refunds to Indigenous customers in response to the report.

CORPORATES
COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA – ASX CBA, asic use AUSTRALIAN SECURITIES AND INVESTMENTS COMMISSION, WESTPAC BANKING CORPORATION – ASX WBC, BENDIGO BANK, AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND BANKING GROUP LIMITED – ASX ANZ