Payout for bad advice near $30m

THE Commonwealth Bank has offered a total $29.1 million in compensation to customers who lost out as a result of its poor financial advice or incorrectly imposed fees.

The lender says it had paid out $23 million covering 1641 cases as at the end of last month.

According to the final report by consulting firm Promontory Financial into the bank’s wealth management scandal, the CBA is aiming to finalise the remaining 545 cases over the coming months.

The bank hired Promontory Financial to review cases and prepare a series of reports as part of its so-called Open Advice Review program.

Promontory’s latest report, published yesterday, is the seventh and final in the series.

The vast majority of cases should be closed by the end of the year, the report said.

The review received 22,797 expressions of interest from customers concerned about their treatment between September 2003 and July 2012.

It registered 10,128 cases, of which 8654 received further investigation.

Almost three quarters of those were ruled to have received appropriate advice, while 14 per cent received poor advice that resulted in financial loss for customers.