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Bank of Queensland has once again been racked by systems errors and has agreed to expand the scope of a review into its compliance systems and remediation processes following further reports of issues with its interest rates and fees.
Earlier this year, Australian Broker reported that BoQ planned to repay customers $12m after self-reporting an on-going failure to link mortgage offset accounts (MOA) to some eligible home loan accounts over several years. The failure meant borrowers paid more interest than they should have.
Following this, ASIC action resulted in the bank appointing an independent expert to make sure its compliance systems work properly and customers are refunded.
In August 2013, BoQ said an internal review had identified further errors, some dating back to 2004, resulting in customers being overcharged in fees and underpaid in interest. The bank confirmed that it would refund an additional $34.5 million and pay another $11.5 million to fix these additional errors.
The MOA and additional errors have impacted approximately 46,000 customers with refunds and remediation costs of $58m, according to ASIC.
“We want to make sure the expert’s review leaves no stone unturned and all customers are appropriately compensated. The review will also ensure that any necessary compliance system improvements are made to minimise the occurrence of similar errors in future,’ says ASIC deputy chairman Peter Kell.
The review will examine the errors reported in August 2013 and BoQ will report to ASIC regularly over the next year with updates of its repayments.
