SYDNEY (Reuters) – The CEO of Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the country’s biggest lender, accused a member of parliament of spreading misinformation on Thursday by saying banks were charging shoppers unfairly for debit and credit card payments.
Australians typically pay a surcharge of a few cents for point-of-sale card transactions as businesses pass on their costs to operate payment terminals, but the Reserve Bank of Australia has said it is reviewing whether to ban the fees as the practice attracts scrutiny.
At a parliamentary hearing, lawmaker Jerome Laxale, of the governing centre-left Labor party, told CBA CEO Matt Comyn that banks were collecting A$4 billion a year from the fees, and held up a A$5 note in one hand and a credit card with “A$5.08” written on it in the other to demonstrate his point.
“This sort of continuing, often fact-free rhetoric that’s being published more broadly is very damaging,” said Comyn, adding that the A$4 billion figure was overstated.
“It is really eroding trust in institutions.”
Comyn, who started as CEO in 2018 as the financial sector was being rocked by a royal commission inquiry that largely focused on customer fees, said he had faced parliament 15 times, often for good reason, but he was concerned by the rising number of claims repeated that were “just not demonstrably true”.
“That’s weakening, driving a fundamental distrust across citizens,” he said.
“You must be seeing it. We are seeing it. I don’t think the right thing is to position things when they’re factually incorrect, as I believe that you are.”
Referring to the politician’s props, Comyn added: “It’s not a like-for-like comparison.”
($1 = 1.4723 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Byron Kaye; editing by Miral Fahmy)
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