CBA expects financial advice review to be completed this year
Commbank's progress report on its Open Advice Review Program says the bank is "making good progress" and has completed more than 5,300 assessments. "We've offered and paid over A$9.4 million to more than 700 customers and we're on track to deliver all remaining assessments by the end of this year. This is in addition to over $52 million we've paid in compensation," the bank's report said. The CBA's Open Advice Review Program was set up to identify and remediate damage done to clients' finances by in-house advisers two years ago.The advisers worked for Commonwealth Financial Planning and Financial Wisdom between 2003 and 2013, with potentially tens of thousands of clients affected.The latest CBA update noted that "after an extensive advertising campaign and a mail-out to around 350,000 households, approximately 8,600 customers requested a review of their advice."The CBA added that 500 people were working on the review and remediation program. This is the same number it had in action a year ago, and represents about one per cent of its 50,000 strong workforce. Giving itself a pat on the back, a CBA infographic indicates that 84 per cent of the advice provided has been assessed as appropriate, with reports taking up an average of 200 pages.The CBA provided no information as to how many disgruntled clients (or former clients) have so far taken their complaints further - to the Financial Ombudsman Service, for instance.