Morrison says $700m CBA fine will pay RC ‘bills’

On Monday, AUSTRAC and CBA reached a $700 million settlement in what has become the largest civil penalty in Australia’s corporate history.

During a press conference in Sydney on Monday, Mr Morrison was asked what the CBA penalty would be spent on. He confirmed that the $700 million payment should hit government coffers next financial year and be used for a range of security measures and government expenses.

“As you know, we have some very significant measures in the budget which relate to keeping Australians safe, whether it is the hardening of Australian airports or a range of other issues that we announce in the budget, the increased presence of the Border Force and AFP at Australian airports,” the Treasurer said.

“There are a range of matters that we have committed to in the national security space. And you add to that, the work that we have done and paying for the royal commission itself. So, that is a bill that still has to be paid.

“There is no shortage of bills that have to be paid at a commonwealth level and this will go into consolidated revenue, and any other measures that the government undertakes in these areas would be subject to the normal new policy proposal process.”

AUSTRAC revealed this week that CBA admitted it contravened the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (the AML/CTF Act) on 53,750 occasions.

In summary, CBA accepted that:

• It failed to carry out an appropriate assessment of the money laundering and terrorism financing (ML/TF) risks of its IDMs prior to October 2017.
• It failed to complete the introduction of appropriate controls to mitigate and manage the ML/TF risks of IDMs prior to April 2018.
• It failed to provide 53,506 threshold transaction reports to AUSTRAC on time for cash transactions of $10,000 or more through IDMs from November 2012 to September 2015, having a total value of about $625 million.

[Related: CBA to pay $700m penalty in AUSTRAC case]