• Contact
  • Feedback
Banking Day
ConfidentiallySpeaking.com.au Logo
High-impact negotiation masterclass | July 9 & 16, 2025 | 5:00pm - 8:30pm
This high-impact negotiation masterclass teaches practical strategies to help you succeed in challenging negotiations.
Register Now
  • News
  • Topics
    • All Topics
    • Briefs
    • Major Banks
    • Authorised deposit-taking institutions
    • Insurance, funds and super
    • Payments, mobile & wallets
    • Consumer lending
    • Mortgages
    • Business lending
    • Finance regulation
    • Debt capital markets
    • Ratings agencies
    • Equity capital markets
    • Professional services
    • Work & career
    • Foreign news
    • Other topics
  • Free Trial
  • Subscribe
  • Resources
    • Industry events
  • About us
    • About Banking Day
    • Advertise
    • Feedback
    • Contact Banking Day
  • Search
  • Login
  • My account
    • Account settings
    • User Admin
    • Logout

Login or request a free trial

Comment: Joint committee Bankwest rehash a mixed bag

01 September 2016 4:30PM
The spotlight landing on concerns over banking misconduct raised by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services will only rip further into already deeply felt wounds.Since the efforts of the PJCCFS over late 2015 and early 2016 are now a centrepiece of the Turnbull government's mini banking inquiry, let's revisit their work.Commonwealth Bank prioritised a "culture of placing profit and return to shareholders ahead of the interests of borrowers" in its handling of many loans extended to customers of Bankwest, the parliamentary committee concluded in a report released in May.But the committee decided it was "not able to determine that deliberate impairment of loans, solely motivated by clawbacks or warranties, occurred."The existence of an actual (though unused) clawback between CBA and HBOS, the distressed vendor of Bankwest in 2008, has long been claimed as an alleged motive for Commonwealth Bank to engineer the 'unjustified default' of a number of business borrowers following the takeover.ANZ also evaded censure from the committee for its management of the lending book of Landmark in recent years."After considering the evidence and responses it has received, the committee has not been able to conclusively determine that deliberate impairments or defaults of performing loans associated with ANZ's acquisition of Landmark occurred," the PJCCFS found.On the other hand, regarding Bankwest, the committee wrote: "It is likely that irresponsible lending was the primary or significant cause of loan failure in a number of cases."It continued, "the committee considers that the manner in which the banks [CBA and Bankwest] facilitated the defaulting of loans, and the subsequent treatment of customers, was in many cases unconscionable."

I'm a returning subscriber

*
Password reset *
Login

Request a free trial

  • Emailing you the news at 7am.
  • Covering core lending and funding issues, strategy, payments, regulation, risk management, IT, marketing and more.
  • Original news and summaries of major stories from other media – ditch your newspaper subscriptions.
  • Focused on banking and finance, saving you the time spent wading through newspapers and other services.
  • With reporting from former editors and senior writers from the AFR and The Australian.
  • Configured for your phone, laptop and PC.
Free trial Banking Day
ConfidentiallySpeaking.com.au Logo
High-impact negotiation masterclass | July 9 & 16, 2025 | 5:00pm - 8:30pm
This high-impact negotiation masterclass teaches practical strategies to help you succeed in challenging negotiations.
Register Now

Consumer lending

  • Latitude, Harvey Norman liable for interest free GO card con

Copyright © WorkDay Media 2003-2025.

Banking Day is a WorkDay Media publication

WorkDay Media Unit Trust

  • Privacy policy
  • Terms of access and use