ASIC sues Commonwealth Bank over $8.5M fees
By Brie CarterKey points
- ASIC filed civil penalty proceedings against Commonwealth Bank of Australia for allegedly overcharging 42,000 CommBiz business customers $8.5 million.
- The regulator is seeking pecuniary penalties, declarations, and adverse publicity orders, while the bank has completed $26.4 million in customer remediation.
- The legal action forms part of the regulator's enforcement priority to address systemic fee disclosures and misleading pricing practices.
ASIC has commenced civil penalty proceedings against Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX:CBA), alleging the bank overcharged approximately 42,000 CommBiz customers $8.5 million between November 2020 and May 2025.
The action follows allegations that the lender applied undisclosed transaction fees on its CommBiz digital banking platform over a 19-year period starting in 2006.
“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 ASIC Commissioner Alan Kirkland.
The regulator stated that internal audits identified fee overcharging issues in 2016 following customer complaints received since at least 2015.
Following the announcement, the Commonwealth Bank share price was unchanged at $168.18.
The bank amended its terms in August 2025 and waived the disputed processing fees starting in February 2026.
Commonwealth Bank has disbursed more than $26.4 million in remediation payments to approximately 93,000 affected CommBiz customer accounts.
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