Narev cleans the slate for ASIC
CBA boss Ian Narev has shed about the only two members of his executive committee born before 1960, with business banking boss Grahame Petersen and international boss Simon Blair both retiring.
The news came just before the Australian Securities and Investments Commission unveiled its conditions for new financial services licences, which includes a demand for CBA to contact a wider group of clients to offer them compensation.
Narev has effectively pre-empted the ASIC statement with his own remediation review, but it doesn’t hurt to have the plod on the case.
Petersen was in charge of wealth management at the time of the snafu and has since been promoted out of the division.
He is at great pains to make clear the decision to quit is his alone and prompted solely by family reasons.
Still, with the ALP still intent on forcing another parliamentary inquiry into the consumer provisions of wealth management it certainly doesn’t hurt Narev to have a clean slate in the bank.
A full international search will be conducted for Petersen’s replacement, which in CBA terms means both the north and south islands of New Zealand.
International boss Simon Blair is moving to London, again for family reasons, and he will be replaced by another relative youngster in Rob Jesudason.
CBA is still working through its remediation team, but ASIC will add in its list.
It said in a statement: “ASIC will appoint an external compliance expert to oversee the AFS licensees’ compliance with the conditions. The expert will also review whether the steps taken by the AFS licensees to identify both the advisers and the clients that were covered by the compensation program were reasonable. The AFS licensees will be required to address any deficiencies identified by that review.”
ASIC chairman Greg Medcraft said: “These conditions and their oversight by an ASIC-appointed expert provide confidence that relevant customers who received poor advice will be appropriately compensated, and that if the AFS licensees’ processes for identifying deficient advice and affected customers were not adequate, that corrective measures are taken.”
These AFS licence conditions are separate to CBA’s expansion of its remediation program of financial advice customers, announced in July.
However, clients covered by the AFS licence conditions may, if they wish, also have their case assessed under that program in addition to, or instead of, the process in the conditions.
This story originally appeared in The Australian'.