Print this article
Australia's Largest Financial Firms Pay A$749 Million In Recompense
Chris Hamblin
19 February 2020
Six of Australia's largest financial institutions paid or offered a total of A$749.7 million (US$502.9) in compensation, as at 31 December 2019, to customers who suffered because of non-compliant advice or the charging of fees for no service. Compensation payments made or offered by institution as at 31 December were as follows. For bad advice: For fees for no service: Compensation Payees Compensation Payees AMP $26,654,023 1,987 $140,459,870 193,167 ANZ $36,205,259 1,777 $59,415,383 21,184 CBA $9,386,454 628 $164,846,374 50,576 Macquarie N/A N/A $2,583,645 734 NAB $39,944,208 1,294 $163,862,768 586,961 Westpac $29,680,142 1,365 $76,686,356 19,441 Total $141,870,086 7,051 $607,854,395 872,063 Macquarie's figures for bad advice are separate because ASIC accepted an enforceable undertaking in January 2013 from Macquarie Equities Limited, a subsidiary of Macquarie Group. The firm thereupon did things that were largely consistent with the aims of ASIC’s review. As redress, as at June 2017, it had paid approximately A$24.7 million in compensation to 263 customers.
AMP, ANZ, CBA, Macquarie, NAB and Westpac undertook "review and remediation programmes" to compensate affected customers as a result of two major reviews by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. ASIC began the reviews in 2015 to look into: whether the institutions made supervised their financial advisors to spot and deal with non-compliant advice; and the extent of failure by the institutions to provide advisory services to customers who were paying fees to receive those services.