Your Customer Advocate

What we do

The Customer Advocate is here to be a voice for you, our customers — to make sure you’re heard, understood and treated fairly throughout the Commonwealth Bank.

While not independent of the Bank, the Customer Advocate is independent within the Bank, with a focus on:
- Identifying opportunities to improve the Bank’s products, services, systems and processes
- Helping the Bank make better decisions through data, insights and different perspectives

How we help

The Customer Advocacy and Vulnerability team supports the Customer Advocate to:

Be the voice of our customers and communities to make sure they’re heard, understood and treated fairly – particularly those in vulnerable circumstances
Promote fair customer outcomes across the Bank and proactively identify and fix issues before they become problems
Guide the Bank in the design of accessible and inclusive products and services
Support the financial safety and wellbeing of customers

What we’re focused on

The Customer Advocate and her team are currently:

Developing ways in which the Bank can better support customers impacted by disasters, experiencing gambling harm, individuals with disability or who are neurodivergent, and carers – among others
Spending time with community organisations across Australia to understand the issues that are affecting the Bank’s customers, such as financial abuse, and finding ways to improve the Bank’s responses
Supporting the Bank’s employees to deliver specialist care to customers experiencing vulnerability
Helping the Bank find ways to support customers impacted by cost of living pressures

How to get help if you have a complaint

The role of the Customer Advocate does not include reviewing individual complaints at the request of customers.
1. If you do have a complaint, please contact the Bank’s complaints team. This gives the Bank the chance to investigate the situation and put things right. You can contact the team on 1800 805 605 (8am-6pm, Mon-Fri, Sydney/Melbourne time) or through the Bank’s complaints and compliments form.
2. If you’re not happy with the outcome from the complaints team, you can contact the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) for an external review. AFCA provides independent financial services complaint resolution that’s free for customers.
3. The Bank will take your concerns seriously, work with you to address your complaint quickly and aim to find a resolution that's fair and reasonable. In doing so, you can expect that the Bank will uphold its complaint handling principles every time.

How to contact your Customer Advocate

The Customer Advocate, Angela MacMillan, and her team can be contacted by:

Email: CustomerAdvocate@cba.com.au

Mail: Customer Advocate
Commonwealth Bank of Australia
Reply Paid 88915
SYDNEY NSW 2001

Resources

Addressing Financial Abuse

What is financial abuse?

Financial abuse happens when money is used as a means to gain power and control over another person. Financial abuse can trap people in an abusive relationship, and may also impact on their ability to stay safe if they decide to leave.

For an overview of financial abuse, and how to recognise the signs, download the guide or summary below:

Safe & Savvy guide

The Commonwealth Bank’s Safe and Savvy awareness program is designed to help safeguard Australian seniors and their families from elder abuse, fraud and online scams. It was developed in collaboration and consultation with seniors’ rights advocates, subject matter experts and elder abuse support service organisations.

Learn more about our Safe & Savvy guide

Download our Safe & Savvy guide

Dealing with a diagnosis

A serious illness, health condition or injury can last for a short time or be long-term, and has the potential to be life-limiting and/or negatively impact a person’s quality of life.

While everyone’s experience is different, we know that having a serious illness, injury or health condition can impact anyone’s finances. That’s why we’ve created a guide to help support people during this difficult time.

Learn more about our Dealing with a diagnosis guide

Download our Dealing with a diagnosis guide

Easy English documents

We’ve worked with accessible information specialists to translate several of our fact sheets and key information into Easy English.

We know that our customers have a diverse range of communication needs and by providing Easy English documents, we are providing a different way to communicate important information. The goal is to make sure that as many people as possible can understand the support and services we provide.

Download our Easy English documents