Commonwealth Bank Of Australia
From IntFX
See also: CBA for realtime information.
The Commonwealth Bank offers a comprehensive range of financial products and services including retail, business and institutional banking, funds management, superannuation, insurance, investment and broking services. The Group has a strong domestic presence with a large customer base and wide financial services distribution network.
The bank’s retail banking services include home loans, credit cards, personal loans, transaction accounts and demand and term deposits. The bank also provides commercial products including business loans, equipment and trade finance, and rural and agribusiness products.
The bank also wide array of investment choices through a range of internal investment funds as well as master trust product, FirstChoice.
The bank’s asset management business manages investment portfolios for a diverse range of retail and wholesale clients providing them a large range of active and indexed investment options including Australian and international shares, listed property, fixed interest, credit, infrastructure, private equity and cash.
The bank’s insurance products include term insurance, disability insurance, master trusts, annuities and investment products.
The bank has a growing international presence through retail banks in New Zealand, Indonesia, Fiji and China. The bank has branches in London, New York, Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong and Auckland.
The Commonwealth Bank has four business segments including:
- Retail Banking Services: Retail Banking Services focuses on meeting the financial needs of personal and small business customers seeking accessible and affordable banking.
- Premium Business Services: The segment provides wealth and relationship management for premium clients. Online broking service, CommSec, is part of the segment.
- Wealth Management: The segment offers the Group's funds management platform, master funds, superannuation, insurance and financial advice business support. This includes Colonial First State, Commonwealth Investment Management, Colonial Insurance, CommInsure and third party support services for brokers, agents and financial advisers under existing brands.
- International Financial Services: The segment focuses on offshore growth opportunities for the bank and provides banking, insurance and investment product distribution services to corporate, business and retail customers in the Asia Pacific region.
[edit] Strategy
The bank focuses on:
- Customer service: Reinvigorate the Cohen Brown Service and Sales program across the Group. Improve customer engagement by investing in people to improve knowledge and capability.
- Business banking: Extend CommSec and provide CommBiz, a comprehensive, state of the art, Internet Business banking service for customers.
- Technology & operational excellence: Provide a group-wide approach to IT leveraging in-house IT capabilities. Continue to develop lean and efficient customer centric processes.
[edit] History
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia was incorporated in 1911 under the Commonwealth Bank Act, enacted by Andrew Fisher's Labor Government. The act gave right to the bank t conduct both savings and general bank business. During the late 1950s, the bank was split on the controversy over the Commonwealth Bank's dual functions as a central bank on the one hand, and a trading/savings bank on the other. Legislative changes in the form of the Commonwealth Bank Act 1959 and the Reserve Bank Act 1959 formally divided the two operations. The Reserve Bank of Australia was established on 14 January 1960, it assumed control of all central banking activities. Trading/savings bank activities, together with the newly constituted Commonwealth Development Bank, came under the auspices of the renamed Commonwealth Banking Corporation.
[edit] Financial performance
As of June 2007, Commonwealth Bank has A$425.1 billion of total assets up 15.2% from $369.1 billion in 2006. The bank’s total operating income increased 10.2% to A$13,308 million in 2007 from A$12,081 million in 2006. During the same period, the bank’s net interest margin declined 15 basis points to 2.19% in 2007.
