Commonwealth Bank acknowledges ASIC’s release of the first report completed by KordaMentha Forensic. KordaMentha was appointed by ASIC as the Compliance Expert to oversee Commonwealth Financial Planning’s and Financial Wisdom’s varied licence conditions. These varied licence conditions were announced in May 2014.

The Comparison Report identifies and compares the process steps undertaken with affected customers in previous financial advice remediation programs. The aim of the report is to ensure consistency of the process steps across the programs.

Commonwealth Bank has acknowledged that a number of CFPL and FWL financial advisers failed in their primary obligation to act in the interests of customers. We are committed to putting things right for those customers in an open and transparent manner.

What this means for CFPL and FWL customers

We will now contact around 4,300 financial planning customers, and for those that received financial advice from a former CFPL or FWL adviser, the letter will include details of an offer by CFPL and FWL to pay up to $5,000 to have their advice assessment reviewed independently.

Customers contacted during this process are also eligible to participate in the Open Advice Review program.

In the meantime if any of our customers are concerned please contact us on 1800 111 198, Monday to Friday 8:30am – 5:00pm (AEST).

About the Open Advice Review program (OARp)

The OARp is the customer review and remediation program announced by Commonwealth Bank on 3 July 2014 in respect of advice provided by CFPL and FWL during the period 1 September 2003 and 1 July 2012. For further details on the OARp go to commbank.com.au/openadvice