Forensically, still CBA faulty on planning
If Commonwealth Bank's response to the financial planning mess is meant to yield a story of aptitude it missed its target.ASIC yesterday released KordaMentha Forensic's second report on past activities by Commonwealth Financial Planning Limited and Financial Wisdom Limited to identify high-risk advisers and to review and compensate affected customers.This report was required under additional conditions imposed by ASIC on the Australian financial services licences of CFPL and FWL in August 2014.One tale of woe in the report is a comparison of internal CBA work in 2014 compared with 2012.The lack of thoroughness the first time seems to permeate the second as well.There is no update on resources consumed at Commonwealth Bank by all this review work, but one CBA disclosure this year showed more than one per cent of its workforce was diverted to this fix.ASIC said the KordaMentha Forensic report finds that in 2012 CFPL and FWL took reasonable steps to identify which clients of a group of former advisers should be included in a compensation program."It also finds CFPL and FWL took reasonable steps to identify other potentially high-risk advisers," ASIC said.However, ASIC said, "KordaMentha Forensic finds that CFPL and FWL did not have a reasonable basis for the processes they used to determine whether a group of the potentially high-risk advisers they identified should have been included in a compensation program."ASIC said that "as a result of KordaMentha Forensic's finding, CFPL and FWL are required to review client files of 17 advisers to determine whether the advisers should be included in a compensation program. "If any of their clients are found to have lost money as a result of inappropriate advice, they will be compensated in a process overseen by KordaMentha Forensic."KordaMentha Forensic's third report, the Compliance Report, will be released in 2016.