Commonwealth Bank of Australia chief executive officer Matthew Comyn yesterday said he is committed to restoring trust in the lender after a series of bruising scandals and mistreatment of customers.
Comyn was the first chief executive of Australia’s four big banks to appear in front of a parliamentary committee after a report last month strongly criticized the industry for pursuing profit at the expense of basic standards of honesty.
“We have seen far too many instances of unacceptable customer outcomes,” Comyn told the committee in Canberra.
There were “failures of judgment, failures of process, failures of leadership and in some instances greed,” he said.
The government-appointed inquiry uncovered a litany of wrongdoing, ranging from charging dead people for services to lying to regulators about misconduct, triggering a sharp fall in banks’ share prices this year.
Over the past two weeks, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd and Westpac Banking Corp have said that profits would be hit by additional costs related to cleaning up their businesses.
“I’d like once again to apologize unreservedly to the customers we’ve let down,” Westpac chief executive Brian Hartzer told the committee.
The Royal Commission report was “incredibly confronting” he said.
While overall economic growth remains sound, we are seeing increasing uncertainty,” Hartzer said. “Regulatory changes that impact how much individuals can borrow, the cost and availability of credit for business, or the availability and affordability of suitable financial advice should be considered carefully.”
ANZ Bank chief executive Shayne Elliott is to testify today and National Australia Bank Ltd chief executive Andrew Thorburn appears next week.
Anna Bhobho, a 31-year-old housewife from rural Zimbabwe, was once a silent observer in her home, excluded from financial and family decisionmaking in the deeply patriarchal society. Today, she is a driver of change in her village, thanks to an electric tricycle she owns. In many parts of rural sub-Saharan Africa, women have long been excluded from mainstream economic activities such as operating public transportation. However, three-wheelers powered by green energy are reversing that trend, offering financial opportunities and a newfound sense of importance. “My husband now looks up to me to take care of a large chunk of expenses,
SECTOR LEADER: TSMC can increase capacity by as much as 20 percent or more in the advanced node part of the foundry market by 2030, an analyst said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to lead its peers in the advanced 2-nanometer process technology, despite competition from Samsung Electronics Co and Intel Corp, TrendForce Corp analyst Joanne Chiao (喬安) said. TSMC’s sophisticated products and its large production scale are expected to allow the company to continue dominating the global 2-nanometer process market this year, Chiao said. The world’s largest contract chipmaker is scheduled to begin mass production of chips made on the 2-nanometer process in its Hsinchu fab in the second half of this year. It would also hold a ceremony on Monday next week to
TECH CLUSTER: The US company’s new office is in the Shalun Smart Green Energy Science City, a new AI industry base and cybersecurity hub in southern Taiwan US chip designer Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) yesterday launched an office in Tainan’s Gueiren District (歸仁), marking a significant milestone in the development of southern Taiwan’s artificial intelligence (AI) industry, the Tainan City Government said in a statement. AMD Taiwan general manager Vincent Chern (陳民皓) presided over the opening ceremony for the company’s new office at the Shalun Smart Green Energy Science City (沙崙智慧綠能科學城), a new AI industry base and cybersecurity hub in southern Taiwan. Facilities in the new office include an information processing center, and a research and development (R&D) center, the Tainan Economic Development Bureau said. The Ministry
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday signed a letter of intent with Alaska Gasline Development Corp (AGDC), expressing an interest to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) and invest in the latter’s Alaska LNG project, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. Under the agreement, CPC is to participate in the project’s upstream gas investment to secure stable energy resources for Taiwan, the ministry said. The Alaska LNG project is jointly promoted by AGDC and major developer Glenfarne Group LLC, as Alaska plans to export up to 20 million tonnes of LNG annually from 2031. It involves constructing an 1,290km
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