The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has taken Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) to court. It alleges the bank charged business customers fees that were never disclosed in its CommBiz terms and conditions.
The regulator claims that between November 2020 and 31 May 2025, about 42,000 customers of the online business banking platform were overcharged roughly $8.5 million. ASIC says many of them were small businesses.
The case centres on Direct Debit and Direct Credit payments. CommBiz customers were told they would pay a fee for each payment to or from a third-party account. According to ASIC, CBA also charged a second, undisclosed fee, known as a “contra leg” fee, for the matching movement of funds into or out of the customer’s own account.
In one example ASIC gave, a small business paying the fortnightly wages of 10 staff from two CommBiz accounts was charged 12 fees rather than 10.
“Small businesses are busy enough. They should not have to scrutinise every transaction to make sure that their bank is charging them the right fees,” ASIC commissioner Alan Kirkland (pictured) said in a media release.
CBA paused the fees in June 2025 and revised the CommBiz terms in August that year. It has waived the contra leg fees since February 2026. ASIC said the bank has completed a remediation program going back to December 2006, paying more than $26.4 million to around 93,000 customers, including about 40,000 small businesses.
CBA said in a statement to the ASX, reported by AAP, that it had identified the issue itself, reported it to ASIC and cooperated fully with the investigation. The bank said the median remediation payment to affected customers was about $85, with an average of about $442 including interest. It intends to defend certain aspects of the claim or otherwise continue working with ASIC to resolve the proceedings.
ASIC is seeking declarations, financial penalties, adverse publicity orders and costs. The court has not yet set a date for a case management hearing.
ASIC alleges the misleading terms had been in place since CommBiz launched in 2006, and that customers were overcharged for around 19 years. The $8.5 million in the case relates only to the period from November 2020.
The regulator also claims CBA received customer complaints about the issue from at least 2015. A 2016 internal audit then flagged overcharging of Direct Debit fees and required corrective action. ASIC further alleges that governance failings meant the allegedly misleading statements were not identified and corrected, and that CBA failed to act efficiently, honestly and fairly.
“What makes this particularly concerning is how long the alleged conduct went on, despite customer complaints to Commonwealth Bank pointing to a problem years earlier,” Kirkland said.
“This action should serve as a warning to banks that failing to get the basics right will attract ASIC attention,” he added.
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