Australia watchdog sues country’s largest lender CBA alleging it overcharged businesses

Australia’s corporate regulator is suing Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), alleging the country’s largest lender overcharged business customers millions of dollars in fees they were not told about.The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has commenced civil penalty proceedings against CBA, the agency said in a statement on Nov 12. The allegations centre upon the bank’s CommBiz unit that serves commercial customers, including small businesses, and which had been identified a decade ago.A spokesperson for CBA didn’t reply to a request for comment.The division’s terms and conditions were misleading and failed to clearly outline fees charged for certain debit and credit payments, ASIC said. Between November 2020 through the end of May 2025, around 42,000 customers were overcharged A$8.5 million ($7.47 million), ASIC said.“We allege Commonwealth Bank broke a basic promise to its business customers, many of them small businesses, that the fees it told them they would pay were the fees they would actually be charged,” said Alan Kirkland, commissioner for ASIC.The regulator said CBA received customer complaints about the issue from as far back as 2015, and that a 2016 internal audit identified overcharging direct debit fees and required corrective action, according to ASIC.“What makes this particularly concerning is how long the alleged conduct went on, despite customer complaints to Commonwealth Bank pointing to a problem years earlier,” Kirkland said. BLOOMBERG