Commonwealth Bank's sudden admission of guilt in relation to Storm Financial leaves the Bank of Queensland looking like a shag on a rock.It also strengthens the chances of former Storm clients winning damages in their class actions against organisations complicit in the Storm disaster.And with the bank acknowledging responsibility pressure will follow to expain the breakdowns in risk management that allowed rotten loans to secure approval so readily and repeatedly.The CBA's decision to come clean on the unhealthy lending practices at its Townsville branch is timed to pre-empt the bank's appearance at the joint parliamentary committee inquiry into financial products.Someone at the CBA is due to appear at the inquiry which starts public hearings on June 24. That person can now go armed with the mea culpa.CBA's statement from chief executive Ralph Norris was short on the detail of the size of the financial settlements it has reached or is negotiating with the 2,500 customers affected by the shortfalls in its lending practices.It was also a bit coy about the exact failings in it systems and the types of settlements it is making.The primary failing was the bank's desktop property valuation system called VAS. The system applied generic valuation data across entire geographies. The valuations were used to ramp up the commission-driven Storm negative gearing business through CBA's wholly-owned Colonial Geared Investments.CBA has been offering a range of settlement options including lifetime tenancy, lower interest rates and some form of delayed payment terms.The Norris statement gives the impression that CBA consulted the Australian Securities and Investment Commission beforehand, because it has not precluded customers having their financial position improved from an ASIC class order or court-ordered settlement.BoQ was as aggressive as the CBA in pushing people to gear up their family homes to invest funds in shares through Storm and Colonial Geared Investments.But the BoQ has remained steadfast in refusing to admit its loan application processes had any shortcomings. Its brand has suffered immeasurable damage in north Queensland.It has used the imminent filing of a class action by Slater & Gordon in Brisbane as a reason not to comment on the Storm matter.But a spokeswoman said today that the bank invited any of its customers affected by the Storm collapse, who were facing financial difficulty, to get in touch about the bank's hardship provisions.Thanks to the Storm gearing program, Townsville became the milking cow for unusually large home loan lending volumes for years.Other banks got heavily involved.They jumped in after watching the local branches of CBA and BoQ deliver some of the highest home loan volumes from any branch in Australia.Mark Weir, joint chairman of the Storm Investors Consumer Action Group, took up a special Storm home loan offer from Westpac. Weir, a pensioner, was allowed to borrow $580,000 which was geared up in the Storm negative gearing plan.He lost $3.5 million and is in discussions with Westpac about taking up the bank's hardship provisions.CBA's apology to its customers did not go as far as admitting any fault in relation