CommBank has backed down from the $3 fee per “assisted withdrawal" — that's withdrawals from bank branches or on the telephone.
👉 Background: CommBank is Australia's big yellow bank with a whopping 17 million customers, and an even more whopping $9.8 billion in profit for the last financial year.
👉 What happened: Earlier this week, CommBank announced that it's closing one million “Complete Access” accounts and moving those customers into a “Smart Access” account where customers will be charged $3 per “assisted withdrawal" — that's withdrawals from bank branches or on the telephone.
👉 What else: This change created uproar - even A Current Affair got involved. Even Treasurer Jim Chalmers got involved and called the CommBank CEO directly. So now, CommBank has backed down from this change and its PR team really has its work cut out for them after this communications bungle.
💡Sometimes the messaging is even more important than the substance.
💡Shifting 1 million CommBank customers to the new account would actually save them $2 per month in account fees. On top of that, 90% of these customers don’t withdraw at a branch or on the phone.
💡But, the communication of this message… and its timing couldn’t have been worse. The change was announced at a time in the lead-up to Christmas, when 87% of households are feeling under stress at the supermarket. Clearly, CommBank underestimated how customers would feel about being charged to access their own money.
So rather than being the Grinch this Christmas, CommBank has decided to reverse its decision (for now).
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