October 28, 2016

Fee for no service the latest scandal for banks behaving badly

It's the story that just keeps on giving - banks behaving badly.

In the latest instalment, corporate regulator ASIC has quantified the way banks overcharged customers of their financial planning divisions.

In total, customers were slugged $178m, with the title of ASIC's report saying it all, "Financial Advice: fees for no service."

Given what we know about the Commonwealth Bank's financial advice scandals, it's no surprise that Australia's biggest bank (in fact, Australia's biggest company) is the biggest offender.

According to ASIC, CBA needs to pay back an estimated $106 million plus interest, or 60 per cent of the total of all four big banks and AMP.

What is a surprise, given how CBA has trumpeted the way it's trying to make amends for the wrongdoing of its financial planning arm, is that when it comes to paying compensation it's a country mile behind its rivals.

ASIC revealed CBA had so far paid back just $576,000 of the $106 million it owes, or about half a per cent.

Westpac has paid back all the $1.2 million it overcharged; AMP half the $2.4 million it owed; ANZ almost half of the $33.5 million against its name and NAB has paid nearly a third of its $13.4 million in overcharging.

Another thing the ASIC report highlighted is the importance of FoFA.

The Coalition, and the banks, fought tooth and nail to have the 'opt-in' clause removed from the Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) reforms which were introduced by the former Labor Government in response to the collapse of Storm Financial.

Opt-in, as the name suggests, means the customers of financial planners have to indicate that they want to keep receiving advice and are willing to continue to be charged.

Without it, as ASIC has found, financial planners kept taking chunks of people's savings as 'fees' despite no indication from the client that he or she wanted the relationship to continue and, clearly in many instances, no advice being given.

A nice little earner, or should I say big earner, if you can get it. All $178 million of it.

It was only through the implementation of opt-in that the banks' and AMP's rorting of their customers was discovered.

Lack of accountability at the top of banks

Once again it points to the sales driven culture at the big banks and the refusal of the banks to hold anyone in a senior position to account.

As everyone knows, the culture of any organisation is set at the top, yet in bank world it seems those who set the culture are not made responsible when that culture plays out.

At the recent House of Representatives inquiry into the big four banks, CBA boss Ian Narev was asked if any bank employees had been disciplined over the scandal at the bank's insurance arm, CommInsure.

"At this stage, we have not had individuals terminated as a result of this, because we have not seen the need to do that," was Mr Narev's response.

Yes, a few financial planners have been sacked by a number of the banks in the face of clear evidence of wrongdoing.

ANZ fired a couple of traders earlier this year after the revelation of a "sex, drugs and alcohol" culture in the bank's trading room.

But as scandal after scandal has been revealed at the banks, senior management apparently has been immune from feeling their jobs are under threat.

Yet it's these men and women who set the culture of their banks.

As I wrote back in January about the culture at ANZ:

"If the chief executive, or his direct reports in upper management, felt the behaviour of customer-facing staff put their jobs at risk, you can guarantee things would change pretty quickly.

"I've heard the chairs of both ANZ and Macquarie say they are not responsible for the scandals at their banks, and they're right.

"But they and their boards, and all boards for that matter, do have the power to draw a very firm line in the sand, if they ever chose to use it."

We're still waiting.

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