Commonwealth Bank today acknowledges that civil proceedings have been brought by the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC). The proceedings relate to deposits made through our Intelligent Deposit Machines from 2012.

We have been in discussions with AUSTRAC for an extended period and have cooperated fully with their requests. Over the same period we have worked to continuously improve our compliance and have kept AUSTRAC abreast of those efforts, which will continue.

We take our regulatory obligations extremely seriously and we are one of the largest reporters to AUSTRAC. On an annual basis we report over four million transactions to AUSTRAC in an effort to identify and combat any suspicious activity as quickly and efficiently as we can.

We have invested more than $230 million in our anti-money laundering compliance and reporting processes and systems, and all of our people are required to complete mandatory training on the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act.

Money laundering undermines the integrity of our financial system and impacts the Australian community’s safety and wellbeing. We will always work alongside law enforcement, intelligence agencies and government authorities to identify, disrupt and prevent this type of activity.

We are reviewing the nature of the proceedings and will have more to say on the specific claims in due course.