Commonwealth Bank has backflipped on its plan to charge customers a $3 fee to withdraw their own cash from its storefronts across Australia.
On Tuesday, Commonwealth Bank — AKA Australia’s biggest bank — announced its plan to charge customers a three-buck fee when withdrawing cash from its staff-assisted locations from January 6, 2025.
The decision was met with an immense amount of backlash, with the Federal Government also urging the major bank to reconsider its shocking decision, describing the move as a “kick in the guts” to customers.
A day later, the Commonwealth Bank shared that it will be pausing the plans to implement the fee, with the bank’s head of retail baking services Angus Sullivan apologising for “poorly communicating” the big change.
“We feel that we didn’t get the communication right on this, and we want to take a more individual approach,” Sullivan said in a snap media conference on Wednesday, per ABC News.
When asked if this was due to the government’s pressure on the bank, Sullivan denied the claim and stressed that Commonwealth decided to pause its plan due to customer complaints.
“This is based on us listening to our customers and making sure that we do the best that we can by them,” he said.
“We feel we didn’t get the communication right on this, so we’ve paused, and we want to take a different approach.
“So it’s very much from listening to our customers and making sure that we adapt our approach as is helpful.”
Why did Commonwealth Bank want to charge a $3 assisted withdrawal fee next year?
In its initial announcement, Commonwealth Bank shared that it’s moving all its customers who use “Complete Access” accounts to “Smart Access” accounts. Moving consumers to “Smart Access” would allow them to use digital services such as BPay and Apple Pay.
“As part of our commitment to provide the best available banking experiences, we’ve reviewed our everyday accounts offering and will be replacing Complete Access with our newer transaction account, Smart Access,” the bank’s announcement read.
During Wednesday’s snap media conference, Sullivan confirmed that Commonwealth Bank would be pausing the migration for six months as “10 per cent” of its customers who are using assisted withdrawal services would be “worse off” from the new plan, ABC News reports.
However, Sullivan claimed that the remaining 90 per cent of customers who use a “Complete Access” account would benefit from the change and put them in a “better position”.
Before the Commonwealth Bank’s Wednesday announcement, customers dropped zero dosh when using staff-assisted locations.
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