CBA and Bankwest to be repaid up to $15 million

The nation’s biggest bank and its subsidiary Bankwest has been forced to reimburse thousands of employees who have been left short-changed in their wage entitlements, with unions slamming the bungle as a “major stuff-up”.

The nation’s largest bank, the Commonwealth Bank, has been forced to repay 8000 staff up to $15 million in entitlements after a series of embarrassing blunders left thousands of staff short-changed.

Workers at CBA and its subsidiary lender Bankwest are among those who have been severely underpaid, missing out on salary, superannuation, interest and leave entitlements.

It comes after recent reports surfaced that CBA was planning to cut more than 10,000 jobs in an effort to reduce $2 billion in annual costs.

Thousands of staff at CBA and Bankwest have been left severely short-changed on their employee entitlements. Picture: Hollie Adams

The Finance Sector Union’s national secretary, Julia Angrisano, labelled it “a major stuff-up” that has impacted thousands of employees because of the bank’s poor accounting and IT processes.

CBA and Bankwest have begun the massive task to reimburse both current and former staff their underpaid sums from a series of issues that have spanned the past decade.

“This is a major stuff-up by the CBA and hardworking bank staff deserve an apology and a commitment from the CBA’s chair Catherine Livingstone and CEO Matt Comyn that this kind of pay bungle won’t happen again,” she said.

“In banking the rules are well and truly broken when the strongest, most profitable bank sets up systems that underpay already low-paid workers.”

Ms Angrisano said more than $10 million in backpay needs to be repaid but it could quickly climb to $15 million once full restitution is made.

The Finance Sector Union’s national secretary, Julia Angrisano, labelled it “a major stuff-up”. Picture: Hollie Adams

The FSU said other pay issues included:

• CBA failed to do regular checks on every employee’s wage and some staff were being paid below the award rate.

• The flow-on effects included incorrectly paying out staff who have since left the bank.

• Bankwest staff missed out on one day’s full pay every year but it remains unclear for how many years.

CBA has already got a tainted reputation following the financial services’ Royal Commission and the revelation of a long list of failures at the bank.
This included anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws, misconduct within its financial advice business and serious issues in its life insurance arm.

Commonwealth Bank’s executive general manager said affected current and former employees would receive back pay with interest. Picture: Hollie Adams

In 2017 CBA began undergoing a review of employee entitlements for current and former employees to which discrepancies were discovered in employees’ entitlements.

CBA’s executive general manager of group people services Andrew Culleton said the bank “regret these errors and apologise.”

“Our people have worked and continue to work hard to support our customers and I want to assure them that we’re fixing our systems and processes so this doesn’t happen again,” he said.

“All impacted current and former employees with entitlements owing will receive back pay with interest and their leave balances adjusted where applicable.”

He said the first tranche will result in repaying $4.8 million including interest to current and former employees.

The Australian Council of Trade Union’s secretary Sally McManus also hit out at the bank for planning to slash thousands of jobs and said it was one of the nation’s strongest companies who decided to cut “massive amounts of jobs just because it can.”

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