Australia’s CBA boss blasts MP over ‘misinformation’ on card payment fees Reuters

By Byron Kaye

SYDNEY (Reuters) – The CEO of Australia’s biggest bank has accused a member of parliament of spreading misinformation and labeled a proposed tax on corporate profits as meritless, dismissing what he called “insidious populism”. as far as the corporate sector is concerned.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia (OTC:) (CBA) chief executive Matt Comyn’s testimony at a routine parliamentary hearing on Thursday marked a break from the deferential tone Australian bank chiefs have generally taken since mandatory appearances began in 2017, when the industry was engulfed in scandal.

Asked about the point-of-sale surcharges companies charge Australians who pay for goods with debit and credit cards, Comyn denied the charges were a way for banks to increase profits. The Reserve Bank of Australia has said it may ban surcharges, but Comyn said banks generated A$4 billion ($2.72 billion) a year of them were untrue.

“This kind of continued rhetoric, often without facts, that is published more widely is very damaging,” Comyn said.

He was asked about the fees by a lawmaker who held a $5 bill in one hand and a credit card that said “$5.08” in the other, referring to the price of a coffee.

“It really erodes trust in institutions. It weakens, it creates a fundamental mistrust among citizens,” added Comyn, who started as CEO in 2018.

“You have to see this. We see it. I don’t think the right thing to do is to position things when they are factually incorrect, as I think you are.”

Referring to the politician’s prop, Comyn added: “It’s not a like-for-like comparison.”

Asked about a policy proposed a day earlier by the left-wing Greens party, which has 12 of Australia’s 76 senators, to raise taxes on big banks and miners to collect another A$514 billion over 10 years, Comyn called the proposal “an example”. of insidious populism”.

The policy seemed based on a “false dichotomy that there is something unjust and profit has been unjustifiably extracted and there is a reason why this should not (be),” he said.

It was an example of “performative policies that are designed to attract attention, that lack rigor and merit,” he said.

“A number of them are based on assumptions that are just demonstrably false.”

($1 = 1.4732 Australian dollars)