Commonwealth Bank has a bit more than $1 billion in residential mortgages to clients of the failed financial planning firm Storm Finance, the
Sydney Morning Herald reported.
As is more widely known since the collapse of the Townsville-based firm two weeks ago, clients of Storm also had around $1.1 billion in margin loans funded by Commonwealth Bank, while those clients had about $1 billion invested in funds managed by the bank's wealth management arm, Colonial.
The point of the SMH article is to review some of Storm's lobbying of CBA's chief executive, Ralph Norris, in late November over the impending failure of Storm Finance and the consequences for the bank, while the article also explores aspects of the public relations offensive this week of Storm's founder, Emmanuel Cassimatis.
The banking angle is the scale of the residential loan portfolio of CBA that may be subject to reviews by administrative tribunals and courts, on the assumption that plenty of aggravated clients seek redress, especially in the case where predatory and fraudulent lending may have occurred (and as alleged elsewhere in relation to Storm and the banks that funded hefty home loans for pensioner investors).