A former subsidiary of the Commonwealth Bank has been fined almost $2 million for charging customers fees after they had died. 7NEWS
The Banking Royal Commission found Avanteos Investments Limited were continuing to bill hundreds of customers for services more than two years after their deaths.Avanteos Investments Limited was a subsidiary of the Commonwealth Bank, which sold superannuation through financial advisers.
But it took 28 months to update the documents, during which time it wrongly charged 499 customers just shy of $700,000 in adviser service fees.Avanteos’ practice was to continue deducting the fee after being notified that a member had died and until an account was closed, unless it received instructions to cease payment.
“In my view, it was clearly practicable to have taken reasonable steps to remedy the defect,” he said.