Commonwealth Bank was once established proudly as the Australian People’s bank. But it’s record of financial gambling since Keating-Hawke Labor privatised it, reveals it as a corporate thief lacking any public trust or legitimacy.
Between 1991 and 1996 the Australian Labor Part under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating treacherously sold off Australian taxpayer heritage owned Commonwealth Bank. Australians’ banking wealth generation asset was cashed in for $8 billion to fund Labor party extravagance, like teenagers on parents’ credit card. Labor’s sale of our ‘people’s bank’ was political misappropriation of Australian public wealth.
Commonwealth Bank backed Storm Financial which gambled away hundreds of millions of Australian retirement savings. The underwriting Commonwealth used lawyers to evade criminal liability for Storm Financial and got away with it.
The Commonwealth Bank then sacked Australian ethical financial planners, to employ dodgy asian high risk gamblers like Don Nguyen.
Vietnamese Don Nguyen is a former Commonwealth Bank senior financial planner, but let off for allegedly forging signatures, overcharging fees and creating unauthorised investment accounts for clients.
CEO Ian Narev cynically offers internal review to avoid public calls for a royal commission into the Commonwealth Bank fraud. He says “trust us.”
Merv and Robyn Blanch were self-funded retirees for 21 years. After receiving dodgy advice from their Commonwealth Bank financial planner, Don Nguyen, they lost around $170,000. By 2009 they were reliant on social security to survive. They were just two of thousands of clients who fell victim to rogue planners at the bank. The Commonwealth Bank initially offered the Blanchs a derisory $6,000 in compensation, which they rejected.
How complicit is Ian Narev is his banking culture of personal profit greed?
Whistleblower of Commbank’s financial fraud, Jeff Morris, a financial planner at the Commonwealth Bank, had warned Australia’s government national financial regulator, Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) in 2008 many times about Nguyen’s dodgy deals and those of his rogue colleagues. But ASIC failed to act.
Commonwealth Bank’s slimy Vietnamese financial planner Don Nguyen controlled $300 million in retirement savings of 1300 Australians. Nguyen gambled their wealth and profited personally and the Commonwealth Bank encouraged his financial gambling by rewarding Nguyen with massive bonuses.
Consumer advocate Choice says regulations introduced by the Coalition Government that came into force this week, and were supported by the Commonwealth Bank, have watered down a requirement for financial planners to act in a client’s best interests.
Australia’s banks complain about bank bashing. What do the arrogant aristocratic scum friggen expect?
“Consumers must be able to feel confident that they are getting impartial financial advice they can trust, and advice should not be clouded by any type of financial incentive that reward them based on how much of a particular product they sell,” Mr Kirkland said.
The Governance Institute of Australia, which provides education to company secretaries and corporate risk managers, says there should be a royal commission, as the problems are widespread in the industry.
“CBA’s gesture is too little, too late. Their proposed actions may have some impact in lifting the company’s internal standards, but what about the rest of the industry and every other financial planning business that gets off scot-free?” argued the institute’s chief executive Tim Sheehy.
“There are systemic problems, not just at the Commonwealth Bank, but in the financial advisory industry generally, relating to professionalism, expertise and conflicts of interest that need to be fixed urgently.”
ASIC has been criminally negligent in its statutory duty to investigate and act. Similarly ANZ, NAB and Westpac banks are also up to their necks.
