CBA cleanout almost complete after Toevs departure
While Treasurer Scott Morrison expects more CBA executives to be axed over the risk management scandals that have plagued the organisation in recent years, there's a fair chance that it will not happen.Based on the findings of the John Laker-led prudential inquiry, most of the people said to have contributed to the risk management debacles are already gone.The Laker report attributed the systemic failures in risk management at the bank mostly to four office holders, which it described as the "former chairman", the "former CEO", the "former chair of the board's risk committee" and the "former chief risk officer".APRA's unnecessarily technocratic nomenclature does little to enhance the understanding of a layperson trying to read the report, but all of the following office-bearers are no longer with the organisation:• Former chairman, David Turner• Former CEO, Ian Narev• Former Chair of Board Risk Committee, Harrison Young• Former Chief Risk Officer, Alden ToevsA CBA source told Banking Day on Tuesday that Toevs departed the company earlier this month as a special adviser to the board on risk management matters. He also vacated his seat on the board of CBA's Kiwi banking subsidiary, ASB Bank, on 6 April.As the former chief risk officer of the group, Toevs copped a pasting from the Laker inquiry in its final report on various matters relating to risk management.Toevs was the chief risk officer at the bank for eight years to June 2016, having arrived from First Manhattan Consulting Group. In the role of CBA CRO, Toevs became one of the highest paid bank executives in the country.During his time as a key executive of the group he was paid more than A$38 million in cash and incentives.His tenure as CRO covers the period in which a software "coding error" caused CBA's fleet of Intelligent Deposit Machines to rack up more than 50,000 alleged reporting breaches under anti-money laundering laws.The risk management failings identified by Laker's panel occurred partly under Toevs' watch as group CRO.Laker's report indicated that risk assessments of CBA's controversial executive remuneration packages were lacking before 2017."The commentary from the group CRO did not provide an assessment, resulting in the Board Remuneration Committee approving variable remuneration outcomes for the CEO and group executives largely based on generalised attestations from the CEO and the group CRO," the panel stated on page 72 of the report.Former group chairman David Turner also came in for a battering, with Laker's panel concluding that his board lacked "rigour and urgency" in overseeing executive management."Prior to the appointment of the new chair in 2017, the Board's agenda was relatively static and not tailored to the issues, risks or focal areas that demanded attention," the panel found."Face-to-face meetings between the former CEO and chair were not sufficiently frequent to develop a targeted agenda or to understand the most pressing items on which the next meeting needed to focus."Turner is now famous for his glowing tribute to the former chair of CBA's risk committee, Harrison Young, in the 2016 annual report.He told shareholders that Young had