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Australia's Westpac refunds millions for wrongly charged forex fees

Xinhua, September 8, 2016 Adjust font size:

One of Australia's largest bank Westpac has dished out millions of dollars in refunds to about 820,000 of its customers that were unfairly charged a foreign transaction fee.

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) said in a statement on Thursday that Westpac had refunded a total of 20 million Australian dollars (15.36 million U.S. dollars) to its customers recently after for the debacle.

"Following a customer complaint, Westpac notified ASIC that customers may have been incorrectly charged foreign transaction fees for Australian dollar transactions processed by overseas merchants," ASIC said.

Since then, Westpac has updated its disclosure to clarify that any Australian dollar transactions, when processed by overseas merchant will attract a foreign transaction fee.

ASIC Deputy Chairman Peter Kell said it was essential for consumers to know when fees would be charged so that they can make an informed decision when using financial products and services.

Kell said ASIC was working with other industry participants on this issue, including by requiring improved disclosure by a number of credit card issuers.

The action follows a series of refunds to customers from the big banks, with the most recent ANZ's decision this week to return 28.8 million Australian dollars (22.12 million U.S. dollars) to almost 400,000 customers in relation to the incorrect imposition of fees for certain periodical payments.

Last week Commonwealth Bank's high-profile stockbroker CommSec agreed to provide 1.1 million Australian dollars (840,000 U.S. dollars) brokerage fees back to customers in relation to an alleged breach of market integrity rules. Endit