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Compliance firms to monitor CBA groups

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By Scott Hodder and Aleks Vickovich
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2 minute read

ASIC has appointed KordaMentha Forensic to examine two of the Commonwealth Bank’s financial planning businesses to ensure they uphold their licence conditions.

The corporate regulator has appointed KordaMentha to Commonwealth Financial Planning and Financial Wisdom to monitor their meeting of the licence conditions imposed on the two dealer groups in May 2014.

“KordaMentha Forensic will report regularly to ASIC the results of their review of past activities by CFPL and FWL to identify high-risk advisers and affected customers, and CFPL and FWL’s compliance with the new conditions,” a statement from ASIC said.

“ASIC will release the findings, and CFPL and FWL will be required to address any deficiencies identified.

“ASIC imposed the conditions on CFPL and FWL – and flagged it would appoint an external compliance expert – after a scheme developed to compensate customers of former CFPL advisers was not applied consistently across all affected customers of the two businesses,” the statement said.

The Commonwealth Bank said the appointment of KordaMentha would involve the preparation of three reports for ASIC.

"Following the delivery of the first report by KordaMentha Forensic, CFPL and FWL will start contacting customers,” CBA said.

“Customers contacted will be given the choice to have their assessment reviewed, and the opportunity to seek independent advice via a qualified adviser (i.e. a lawyer, accountant or licensed financial adviser), with fees up to $5,000 being met by the Group,” CBA said.