National Australia Bank kept taking advice fees from superannuation customers who had died, the banking royal commission heard on Wednesday, August 8, 2018.
Nicole Smith, the recently departed chair of the bank’s super trustee Nulis, said adviser service fees kept coming out of a member’s account even after the trustee learned of the death. The deductions ran “for a period,” or until the retirement benefit was paid out.
The royal commissioner, Kenneth Hayne, asked whether charging money for no service had breached criminal and civil law. NAB is paying more than $100 million to compensate super customers who were charged a plan service fee for advice with no adviser attached to their account.
The bank, which runs Australia’s largest retail super fund, has admitted members were also billed adviser service fees when no service was provided. Smith said the problem was identified in May and the regulator was notified in June.
The disclosures followed revelations that advisers at Count Financial, a Commonwealth Bank subsidiary, kept charging clients fees after death, in one instance continuing for over a decade. Hayne pressed Smith directly. “Did you think that taking money to which there was no entitlement raised a question of the criminal law?” he asked. She said she did not.
Sources
- National Australia Bank charged fees to dead superannuation customers, inquiry told | Banking royal commission | The Guardian
- Bank Royal Commission: NAB charged dead customers superannuation fees | PerthNow
