Commonwealth Bank Statement in response to Analyst Report of 28 June 2004:

The Finance Sector Union has been publicly claiming that "CBA currently pays less than all of the other major banks, but they are currently 7.8% behind what National Australia Bank is paying staff to serve its customers".(1)

The Commonwealth Bank refutes these claims and, in fact, the FSU itself published material on its website on 18 May 2004 contradicting its own claims.(2)

A copy of the table published in the 18 May article is reproduced below and amended to take into account the Commonwealth Bank’s 4% pay increase to staff, effective from 1 July 2004.

 

                                                                Comm              Comm
                                       ANZ     NAB      Bank **             Bank ***             Westpac**

	ANZ	NAB	Comm Bank**		Comm Bank***	Westpac**
Teller	32,440	34,218	GC 2 31,839	GC 3 33,515	GC2 33,113	GC3 34,856	CSR 1 32,432	CSR 2 35,700
Sales/lender	35,122	41,392	41,219	42,868	36,212
Branch Manager	39,321	48,740	44,123	45,888	47,680
Telephone consultant	34,145	36,135	35,190	36,598	34,137
Team Leader – Tele-sales	42,278	48,740	50,379	52,394	41,461

All banks, except ANZ, are committed to increases of 4 - 4.5% under their agreements with FSU. 
**Commonwealth and Westpac are currently negotiating their new agreements.
*** This column has been added to reflect increase to be paid from 1 July 2004.

As well as the competitive base salary that includes a 4% increase from 1 July 2004, staff participate in a short term bonus program of between 3% and 15% of their base salary each and also participate in a performance based free share grant program.

Staff members receiving the free shares since the program commenced in 1996 and who have reinvested the dividends would have a share holding valued at $14,744.24.

Historically, EBA salary data has been compared based on Hay points (which is a methodology for measuring the size of roles – the Commonwealth Bank no long uses Hay points). Based on changes in roles in the industry during recent years, this basis for comparison is no longer appropriate.

Comparing salary data for roles/job families as in the table above provides a more accurate basis for comparison and is consistent with the methodology for broader industry salary surveys.

1. Sharon Caddie, FSU Media Conference 25 June 2004
2. FSU article Tuesday 18 May 2004 – ANZ Pay – Does not stack up