Australia’s five largest financial service institutions have paid an additional $21.4 million in client compensation in response to an Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) report into non-compliant advice.
ASIC’s Report 515, released in March last year, reviewed advice given by AMP, ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, NAB and Westpac between January 2009 and June 2015.
The report identified a number of clients who “suffered loss or detriment” after receiving non-compliant advice, with the five businesses having paid approximately $30 million in compensation by 31 December 2016, ASIC said in a statement.
Since then, the five businesses have paid a further combined total of $21 .4 million, bringing the cumulative total for compensation relating to matters covered in Report 515 to $51.4 million.
“ASIC continues to oversee the implementation and expert assurance of the remediation work undertaken by the institutions,” the regulator said.
“The institutions are also undertaking, and seeking expert assurance of, work to identify any high-risk advisers not identified by their previous monitoring and supervision processes.”
The regulator added that it has “ongoing investigation or surveillance activities in relation to more than 50 individual advisers within the scope of the work in Report 515” and will issue public reports on these investigations as the work progresses.
