CommBank needs to refund unfair fees, say Australians

CHOICE poll finds 88% of people want the bank to refund low-income customers.

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Last updated: 22 Oct 2025

commonwealth bank building with refund stamp

New polling commissioned by CHOICE has found almost 9 in 10 Australians think the Commonwealth Bank should refund account fees charged to low-income account holders who should have been automatically moved into low- or no-fee accounts.

Between 2019 and 2024, Australia’s largest bank raked in $270 million in excessive account keeping and overdraw fees from people on Centrelink incomes who should never have been charged those fees.

The corporate regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) called out CBA in July and said they should follow other major banks who have moved to refund the cohort of eligible customers.

CBA for its part says customers in the cohort were “diverse” and had varying levels of income, savings and home ownership.

“CBA is reviewing individual cases where customers may have incurred unusually high fees and is considering goodwill adjustments where appropriate,” the bank said.

New polling

New nationally representative polling of over 1000 people by Dynata, commissioned by CHOICE, has found that 88% of people think CBA should provide refunds. The fieldwork was conducted in August of this year.

Slightly fewer people, 83%, agreed that customers who were eligible for no fee or low fee accounts should be automatically switched into them by their bank.

Morgan Campbell, CHOICE head of policy says the poll results are no surprise.

“Australians know bad bank behaviour when they see it. CommBank wasn’t the only big bank keeping people in accounts they shouldn’t have been in, but they’re the only ones who have point blank refused to put it right,” he says.

“These were unfair fees, they should never have been charged, and CommBank needs to do the decent thing and refund them. By continuing to dig in, they’re thumbing their nose at ASIC, at their customers, and at public opinion.”

Jarni

Jarni Blakkarly is an award-winning Investigative Journalist at CHOICE. Jarni has worked for news organisations such as SBS, Reuters, Al Jazeera English, ABC 730, Radio National, BBC World Service and Deutsche Welle. Jarni won the Walkley Foundation's young journalist of the year student category award in 2016 and was the recipient of a Melbourne Press Club Michael Gordon fellowship in 2022. In 2023 he was a highly commended finalist in the Quill Awards and a winner at the 2024 Excellence in Civil Liberties journalism awards. In 2024 he was elected to serve on the Federal Council (National Media Section) of the MEAA. Jarni has a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT). Find Jarni on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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