CBA backs down on withdrawal fee after Chalmers leans on Comyn

James Eyers and John Kehoe

Dec 4, 2024 – 1.47pm

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Commonwealth Bank has backed down on plans to move some customers to an account that charges a $3 fee for withdrawing cash over the counter at its branches, after an intervention by the federal government.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers called CBA chief executive Matt Comyn on Wednesday morning to communicate the government’s concerns with changes the bank unveiled on Tuesday. These included moving around 1 million customers from an old account that did not charge an over-the-counter cash withdrawal fee to one that did.

James Eyers writes on banking, finance, payments, regulation and emerging technologies. Based in Sydney, he is a former legal and investment banking editor at the AFR and has been a business journalist for more than 20 years.

John Kehoe is economics editor at Parliament House, Canberra. He writes on economics, politics and business. John was Washington correspondent covering Donald Trump’s first election. He joined the Financial Review in 2008 from Treasury.