The CEO of the Commonwealth Bank has shed light on the stress that borrowers are facing with the rising cost of living. Matt Comyn has been grilled on the cost of living, credit card surcharges and scams before a parliamentary committee.
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00:00We get the insight from the biggest bank boss in the country, take away the Reserve Bank.
00:07The Commonwealth Bank banks around 7 million people, so they have great insight into what
00:11is happening.
00:12They're obviously concerned about the cost of living and CEO Matt Common gave some detail
00:17about the level of stress that people are finding, particularly as mortgages hover.
00:22There's very high interest rates, most affecting people between the ages of 35 and 44 who have
00:28the highest level of those mortgages and are most sensitive to price changes.
00:34Nothing particularly explosive today, but a really deep insight into some of the issues
00:41there.
00:42We're not seeing a huge jump in what is called arrears, which is people behind on their payments.
00:47But there is some complexity to that.
00:49It may be that the fact that we still have really high housing values and property prices
00:56If people are stretched, they're probably selling out.
00:59So a lot of diverse range of questions from the politically diverse questionnaires on
01:04the committee on everything from funding gas to changes to the tax system.
01:09But some more insight from Australia's biggest bank boss.
01:13There's often talk of a UK model where in the UK, banks are forced to compensate most
01:19people who are involved in scams.
01:20We don't have that here because essentially it creates a bit of a moral hazard about what
01:25customers have to do, the steps they have to take to prevent being scammed at the same
01:29time as banks doing the same thing to prevent their customers being scammed.
01:33This is an ongoing issue.
01:34It is eroding trust in institutions.
01:37And we got a real sense today of just the scale of the problem and how substantial it
01:43is and how much it's costing the banks as well as customers.