Comment: Joint committee Bankwest rehash a mixed bag
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."