70,000 make mortgage help call: CBA

CBA chief Matt Comyn is seeing signs of a ‘levelling out’ in customer requests for help stemming from COVID-19 shutdowns.

CBA chief executive Matt Comyn at the Commonwealth bank offices at Darling park in the Sydney CBD.

Commonwealth Bank chief executive Matt Comyn says the lender is seeing signs of a “levelling out” in customer requests for help stemming from COVID-19 shutdowns, as demand subsides after an initial flood in applications.

CBA, the nation’s largest retail bank, has now fielded more than 70,000 customer requests for a deferral of home loan repayments for up to six months.

That is in addition to the automatically deferred monthly loan repayments for 74,000 businesses, and CBA approving more than $200m in loans to 2500 small businesses under the federal government’s new $40bn loan guarantee scheme.

“Altogether, our support will amount to many billions of dollars being freed up for households and the wider economy over the next 12 months,” Mr Comyn said.

“While we continue to receive ongoing and significant demand, we are beginning to see initial signs of a levelling out of requests for help after the huge spike in the past few weeks. That suggests that the different measures put in place by the federal and state governments, and by the banking industry as a whole, are helping to “flatten” the curve of demand for such assistance.

“Nevertheless, these are still early days, and as the Easter weekend has shown with calls still coming into our contact centres, we will continue to do whatever we can to help customers who are worried about the immediate ­future.”

As at April 3, CBA’s home loan deferral tally stood at 57,000 customer accounts, with the new total of 70,000 requests representing about 4.1 per cent of CBA’s entire home loan portfolio.

In early April it had signed off on $150m of loans — 50 per cent guaranteed by the government — for 1850 businesses.

Major rivals Westpac, ANZ and National Australia Bank have also navigated a surge in requests from home loan and business customers for repayment deferrals, as the economy experiences a period of hibernation which is expected to heavily dent output this year.

Mr Comyn said while the requests for assistance and relief had put “huge demands” on frontline customer-facing staff and processing teams, staff had done a good job in seeking to help customers.

He also noted customers were using multiple channels to seek help, with CBA’s latest numbers showing more than 8.2 million daily log-ons through its app, online banking and website.

“This is a 12 per cent increase in usage of mobile and online banking over the average for this calendar year,” he said.

CBA’s head of retail banking Angus Sullivan said: “The coronavirus crisis has created significant financial wellbeing challenges for our customers.”

CBA has also seen a doubling in the number of customers using a benefits finder feature in its banking app which connects customers to available rebates, claims and benefits they may be entitled to. More than 78,000 customers were using it, the bank said. The top claims recently were for unclaimed money and super, and the power saver bonus.