Commonwealth Bank backs down on asking workers to hand back some of their cash bonuses
The nation’s largest bank has backed down after demanding workers to repay part of their bonuses back due to errors made in calculating how much they should be given.
Companies
Don't miss out on the headlines from Companies. Followed categories will be added to My News.
The nation’s largest financial institution, the Commonwealth Bank, has done an embarrassing backflip after demanding workers repay bonuses they received.
The bank last month paid bonuses to 500 workers including the lowest paid – staff in branches and back office staff – but then reneged a month later and asked for employees to pay back the money.
The cash bonuses were deposited into their accounts.
CBA contacted many of those who received the extra payments and confirmed they had stuffed up, which meant workers had to hand back some of the money given to them.
But the Finance Sector Union on Wednesday confirmed CBA had backed down from its decision.
The union’s national assistant secretary Nathan Rees said the CBA staff had been asked to repay an estimated half a million dollars in total – the equivalent of $1000 each.
“These hardworking CBA employees were told in writing they would receive a bonus, which was then paid, and presumably spent,” he said in a statement.
“For the bank to then say there’s been a mistake and they want the money back is a big ask.”
Mr Rees said some of the impacted staff were only earning about $60,000 per year and being forced to repay money was unfair.
“This is a welcome result and a victory for common sense,” he said.
Mr Rees said it was a “good, sensible result”.
A Commonwealth Bank spokeswoman confirmed the issue occurred last week and “staff were advised of an overpayment error and were asked to pay back the balance that was the incorrect amount.
“The request was regrettable and we acted to reverse the decision quickly.
“We apologise to those employees for the concern this may have caused them.”
It comes just a couple of weeks after the bank suffered a huge outage that resulted in customers not receiving their salaries.
Commonwealth Bank then went on to credit $50 to about 150,000 customers nearly a week later with a description “sorry from the CBA”.
Originally published as Commonwealth Bank backs down on asking workers to hand back some of their cash bonuses