Bank CEO learned from his mistakes, says chair

MATT Comyn got the top job at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia because he had “learnt the hardest possible lesson in the most public way” after presiding over a series of scandals.

CBA chair Catherine Livingstone has defended Mr Comyn’s promotion to CEO, after a series of serious issues under his watch while heading its retail banking division.

Mr Comyn stepped up after AUSTRAC launched legal action over CBA’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) failings, which resulted in a record $700 million civil penalty.

“He took full responsibility, including for areas that were not part of his responsibility,” Ms Livingstone told the banking royal commission in Sydney yesterday.

She said the most telling thing was that Mr Comyn apologised after the AUSTRAC proceedings were lodged last year.

“Apologised to me, apologised to the board for what had happened, and for his failings in that. Mr Comyn applied himself with extraordinary diligence to understand what had gone wrong and what he should have done.

“And I think he, and we, have learnt the hardest possible lesson in the most public way,” Ms Livingstone said.

The retail bank under Mr Comyn was responsible for a number of CBA’s scandals including its AML/CTF failures and the mis-selling of consumer credit insurance.

Ms Livingstone said the easy answer would have been for CBA to appoint an external person as CEO. “To find an external person globally at that level who has not been involved in some regulatory event is almost impossible,” she said.

“And I don’t mean that as a joke.”

CBA agreed to a $700 million civil penalty, the largest in Australian corporate history, to settle the AUSTRAC case.