Australia’s banking chiefs face demands for answers as scrutiny intensifies over major offset failures, which have left thousands of borrowers short-changed.
Shadow housing minister Senator Andrew Bragg has demanded the chief executives of Australia’s four largest banks appear before a Senate inquiry to explain major mortgage offset failures that left thousands of borrowers paying excess interest.
Bragg wrote on Friday (16 October) to Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) CEO Matt Comyn, Westpac CEO Anthony Miller, National Australia Bank (NAB) CEO Andrew Irvine, and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group CEO Nuno Matos, seeking their attendance in Canberra.
Bragg said the inquiry needed to establish when banks became aware of failures, who bore responsibility and what corrective action would follow.
“I want to know what the banks knew, who was accountable, and how they’re going to fix these things for the Australian people,” Bragg said.
“That’s why it’s essential we hear from the CEOs of these banks, and they come and explain themselves to the Senate.
“People are being ripped off where their mortgage account hasn’t been linked to their offset account, and that’s a bloody disgrace.”
Bragg argued that ensuring those connections worked was a basic responsibility of bank leadership.
“They shouldn’t be running a bank if they can’t link someone’s mortgage account to their offset,” he said.
Failures under scrutiny
The Senate economics references committee inquiry, established on 15 September, follows an Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) review of eight lenders’ offset practices.
ASIC examined CBA, Westpac, ANZ, Macquarie Bank, ING Bank, AMP Bank, HSBC, and Credit Union Australia, trading as Great Southern Bank. NAB was not reviewed but is included in the parliamentary scrutiny due to the widespread extent of the issue.
The financial regulator identified major shortcomings in account establishment, linking, monitoring and remediation, with its review including data covering 204,000 unique home loans.
Banks paid more than $55 million in compensation for failures reported between 1 September 2023 and 31 August 2025, with further payments expected.
The stakes extend across a substantial savings pool, with Australians holding about $349.1 billion in offset accounts in March 2026, up 28 per cent over two years.
ASIC chair Sarah Court warned that banks’ own systems had not consistently identified problems before regulatory intervention.
“In some cases, offset failures went undetected until ASIC started asking questions. That should concern every bank offering offset accounts,” Court said.
Court also said the regulator had not uncovered a mistake benefiting a customer, with the errors exclusively favouring lenders.
Regulator faces questions
The inquiry will also examine whether ASIC is imposing adequate consequences when consumers suffer harm.
Bragg maintained that the highly concerning nature of the revelations demanded thorough parliamentary follow-through.
“Home ownership is too important to do a review and then just let it go,” Bragg said.
He described ASIC’s approach as “ridiculous”, arguing that compensation alone did not resolve questions about accountability.
“The banks have been very lucky. ASIC is good at letting them off the hook, and that’s why we have a Parliament to inquire into these things and make sure that we’ve got a proper system of accountability and recompense,” he said.
The committee is due to report by 7 June 2027.
[Related: Offset offsets: Young borrowers turbocharge NAB’s mortgage buffers]
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