Commonwealth Bank of Australia

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), or CommBank, is an Australian multinational bank with businesses across New Zealand, Asia, the United States and the United Kingdom. It provides a variety of financial services including retail, business and institutional banking, funds management, superannuation, insurance, investment and broking services. The Commonwealth Bank is the largest Australian listed company on the Australian Securities Exchange as of August 2015 with brands including Bankwest, Colonial First State Investments, ASB Bank (New Zealand), Commonwealth Securities (CommSec) and Commonwealth Insurance (CommInsure).

Its former constituent parts were the Commonwealth Trading Bank of Australia, the Commonwealth Savings Bank of Australia, and the Commonwealth Development Bank.

Founded in 1911 by the Australian Government and fully privatised in 1996, the Commonwealth Bank is one of the “big four” Australian banks, with the National Australia Bank (NAB), ANZ and Westpac. The bank was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 1991.

The former global headquarters of Commonwealth Bank were the Commonwealth Trading Bank Building on the corner of Pitt Street and Martin Place, Sydney, which was refurbished from 2012 for retail and commercial uses, and (from 1984 to 2012) the State Savings Bank Building on Martin Place, which was sold in 2012 to Macquarie Bank. The headquarters were moved to Tower 1, 201 Sussex Street and two new nine-storey buildings which were built at the site of the former Sega World Sydney, in Darling Harbour on the western side of Sydney’s city centre.

In 2018, findings from the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry have indicated a negative culture within the Bank, amid allegations of fraud, deception, and money laundering, among various other crimes.