BOQ refunds customers $34.5 million
Bank of Queensland has found itself refunding an estimated $34.5 million to customers along with incurring remediation costs of $11.5 million as a result of imposing incorrect interest rates and fees within a number of its products.
The banking group confirmed the situation to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) today, saying the move had followed a comprehensive review of its products, processes and systems flagged late last year.
It said that review had identified a number of legacy issues.
It said the costs identified in the process would be treated as a one-off legacy item in the 2013 Financial Year results and would not therefore impact on normalised cash net profit after tax.
It said around 4 per cent of the bank's customer base was affected by the issues, some of which dated back as far as 2004.
The bank's announcement said that despite the remediation costs, it expected profit before tax for the year to 31 August 2013 to be at the top end of analysts' consensus range of $339 million to $368 million.
The announcement said the bank's management team had started its review of products, processes and systems following the discovery of a mortgage offset account issue late last year.
It said the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) had been advised of the issues and BOQ's priority is to ensure affected customers are reimbursed as soon as practicable.
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