The corporate regulator is suing the Commonwealth Bank for allegedly overcharging tens of thousands of business customers – many of them small businesses – millions of dollars in fees they were never told about.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has commenced civil penalty proceedings against the nation’s biggest bank, alleging that CBA’s terms and conditions for its CommBiz online banking platform were misleading because they failed to clearly and accurately disclose all the fees that customers would be charged for direct debit and direct credit payments.
The lawsuit, announced on Thursday, alleges that about 42,000 businesses banking with CBA were collectively overcharged about $8.5 million in fees between November 2020 and May 2025.
ASIC claims the misleading terms have been in place since CommBiz was launched in 2006, and that CBA did nothing to rectify the issue despite receiving complaints in 2015 and identifying the overcharging during an internal audit in 2016.
While customers were told they would be charged a fee for a payment to or from a third-party account, ASIC alleges CBA “also charged an additional, undisclosed fee for the corresponding movement of money into or out of the customer’s CommBiz account”.
“For example, a small business paying the fortnightly wages of 10 employees from two CommBiz accounts was charged 12 fees: 10 for the payments to its employees and another two undisclosed fees for the money being withdrawn from its own accounts,” ASIC said in a media statement.
ASIC commissioner Alan Kirkland said the alleged conduct represented a failure of basic banking over many years.
“We allege Commonwealth Bank broke a basic promise to its business customers, many of them small businesses, that the fees it told them they would pay were the fees they would actually be charged,” he said.
“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,” Kirkland said.
CBA has been contacted for comment.
The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning.
Elias Visontay is a National Consumer Affairs Reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.From our partners
About the Author
