Third time lucky for CBA's financial planning clients
The third report in a series of reviews by KordaMentha Forensic into how well the CBA's two financial planning businesses have complied with ASIC's additional licence conditions was published yesterday. It indicates that over 4,300 clients of 15 former financial advisers have been offered at the very least, another A$5,000 for an independent review as to whether poor or inappropriate advice was provided between 2003 and 2012, and if so whether their clients suffered any losses.The report also provides further updates on compensation arising from the additional licence conditions. To date, the additional licence conditions have resulted in a further $4.96 million being offered to 185 customers of the 15 advisers. This is in addition to the $26.97 million paid to 707 customers of the same 15 advisers under a previous compensation program.KordaMentha Forensic was appointed as the independent compliance expert to advise on the Additional Australian Financial Services Licence Conditions imposed on the two CBA subsidiaries of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia: Commonwealth Financial Planning and Financial Wisdom Limited.KordaMentha's previous report - the second of three - was published in December 2015. These reports were called for after CBA admitted to ASIC that poor - or conflicted - financial advice was being provided by a number of its advisers. ASIC said it was crucial to identify affected customers, review the advice given and compensate for notional - or actual - losses as a result of inappropriate advice.This latest report indicated that CBA is well on its way to complying with all conditions, admittedly with still not quite 100 per cent compliance. Some 4,333 potential compensation cases were identified. Some of these had previously been incorrectly identified as not requiring further action, had already been examined and paid out under a different procedure, or the person concerned could not be tracked down, for instance.KordaMentha noted that the vast majority of cases tested met the criteria for further actions - all but handful of patients had a complete fail. For most of the steps under review, the "failures" were merely as a result of minor delays, such as late provision of crucial information to the client, or vice versa.The report found there were some serious omissions in the early stages, however. In one instance, no compensation was initially offered because the bank assessed that the investment that resulted from the advice outperformed the reference portfolio. As a result of a reassessment of this advice (to validate past assessments), CBA determined that a loss had been incurred and compensation should be offered. This case provided additional information and then requested an FLR. It was determined that revised total compensation of $625,772 (including interest) was to be offeredThe clients of a further 17 advisers have also been identified, but these reviews are still in early stages. If those reviews identify that any of the clients of those 17 advisers are found to have suffered a loss as a result of inappropriate advice, those clients will be compensated in a process, also overseen by