Commonwealth Bank’s CommBiz customers left millions out of pocket over ‘misleading’ fees, says ASIC

The corporate regulator is taking Australia’s largest bank to court, claiming tens of thousands of its business customers were left millions of dollars out of pocket.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission on Thursday said it had launched civil proceedings again the Commonwealth Bank, taking aim at the terms and conditions offered through its CommBiz digital business banking platform.

The regulator alleges customers, many of them small businesses, were misled because the bank failed to “clearly and accurately” disclose all of the fees they would be charged for direct debit and direct credit payments.

Business customers were told they would be charged a fee for a payment to or from a third-party account.

However, ASIC alleges CBA also charged an additional, undisclosed fee for the corresponding movement of money into or out of the customer’s CommBiz account.

ASIC offered the example of a small business paying the fortnightly wages of 10 employees from two CommBiz accounts.

The business would have been charged 12 fees — 10 for the payments to its employees and another two undisclosed fees for the money being withdrawn from its own accounts.

ASIC commissioner Alan Kirkland said the bank’s alleged conduct failed “to get the basics right” over many years.

‘Small businesses are busy enough. They should not have to scrutinise every transaction to make sure that their bank is charging them the right fees,” Mr Kirkland said.

“ASIC will continue to take action where banks don’t have the systems and processes in place to deliver on the basic promises they make to their customers.”

CBA — which booked a record $11 billion profit last financial year — said it had reported itself to ASIC and had co-operated with its investigation.

“While CBA charged the fee consistently over time, the issue arose from changes made to certain terms and conditions intended to simplify them, which did not accurately reflect the fee charging method,” it said in a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“The relevant fee was 25¢ (plus GST).”

The civil suit covers 42,000 CommBiz customers who were allegedly overcharged about $8.5 million between November 2020 and the end of May, 2025.

But ASIC alleges the conduct stretches back even further to 19 years, with misleading terms and conditions in place from the launch of CommBiz in 2006.

The watchdog also claims CBA started receiving complaints from business customers from at least 2015 and that an internal audit by the bank a year later identified overcharging of direct debit fees and required corrective action.

It said the “failings” by the bank meant the alleged misleading statements were not identified and corrected, and that CBA allegedly “failed to act efficiently, honestly and fairly”.

“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,” Mr Kirkland.

CBA said it had paid back those customers affected since 2006. As at October 20, the median payment was about $85, and the mean payment $442, including nterest.

“While CBA accepts that it did not get things right for CommBiz customers and apologises to all customers impacted by this matter, CBA does not accept the way that some allegations have been formulated,” the bank said.

“It therefore expects to defend certain aspects of the claim, or otherwise continue to engage with ASIC to efficiently resolve the proceedings.”

ASIC is seeking declarations, pecuniary penalties, adverse publicity orders, ancillary orders and costs.

The action comes just a day after the regulator claimed victory in legal proceeding against Australia’s fifth-largest bank, Macquarie, which admitted failures over a savings rate offer it used to lure new customers.

The bank is set to cop a $14m fine and has so far paid out $8.8m in compensation to almost 40,000 account holders.