National Australia Bank has been ordered to pay a $2.1 million penalty for charging customers incorrect fees – with the judge calling the fine “wholly inadequate” and lamenting it couldn’t be more.
Federal Court Justice Roger Derrington wrote in an order on Friday that NAB continued to charge the fees for recurring payments from January 2017 until July 2018 even though it knew it had no contractual entitlement to do so.
“In a context where NAB has been a repeat offender against the financial services legislation in this country and, as this case and others reveal, it appears to place a low priority on respecting the legal rights of its customers, a penalty several times the statutory maximum would have been far more appropriate,” Derrington wrote.
Periodical payment fees amounting to $139,845.90 were charged on 74,593 occasions on 2888 personal banking and 513 business banking customers during the 18-month period.
The fees were actually incorrectly charged dating back to 2007, but Derrington wrote that NAB became aware of them in late 2016.
The issue stemmed from human error when the automated payments were set up by NAB staff.
(9 News)
