Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Presentation] Good morning, shareholders. My name is Helen Dalley, and I'm your MC for today's Annual General Meeting of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia for 2023. My role is to help shareholders understand how the meeting will work, including how shareholders can vote and ask questions. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet today, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation and pay our respects to their elders, past, present and emerging. I extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Trade Islander people here today and who are joining us on the webcast. We are hosting this year's meeting in person at the International Convention Center here in Sydney. And we welcome shareholders to the ICC ballroom and those watching us live online on the webcast. Shareholders can also watch a recording of the webcast from tomorrow, which will be available on the CBA website and the relevant URL is included in your Notice of Meeting. Your safety is a high priority for the bank. So I'll briefly outline the venue's safety procedures. If an emergency occurs, the Chair may need to adjourn the meeting and ask everyone to walk towards the exit sign. Now if that happens, please follow all directions from the ICC staff and security team and listen for further instructions via the public address system. We ask that you now switch off your mobile phone or put it on silent during the meeting. In addition, please don't take photographs or film or record the meeting. Before I hand over to your Chair to formally open the meeting, I will briefly outline the processes that will help shareholders to participate. Firstly, I'll deal with asking questions and voting for those attending here today in the room, and then how to submit questions for those viewing online. When registering your attendance downstairs today, you would have received a colored card. You need your card to ask a question or to reenter the meeting. Yellow cards are for shareholders and proxy holders who may speak and vote. Blue cards are for shareholders who may not speak, but -- sorry, who may speak but not vote both as they have already lodged a vote or they're a joint holder. If you are a shareholder and a proxy holder and you have 2 yellow cards, it is important that you complete both yellow voting cards, one in your own right and the second as a proxy. All other persons holding red or green cards are welcome to attend but may not address the meeting or vote. Now please make sure you vote by putting your yellow cards in one of the ballot boxes before the poll closes, which will be 15 minutes after the end of the meeting. Coming now to questions. Firstly, thank you to shareholders who've submitted questions prior to the meeting. We have sought to address many of these questions throughout the remarks that will be made by the Chair and the CEO in their formal addresses to the meeting and others may be addressed through online questions. As outlined in the Notice of Meeting, questions can be asked by shareholders and proxy holders attending the meeting here today. and also asked by those viewing the webcast online. The Chair will introduce each item of business separately and then invite questions on that item of business. Shareholders and proxy holders who wish to speak should move to the closest microphone located in the room, and there are a number around the room. Please show your yellow or blue card and provide your full name to the microphone attendant who will introduce you to the meeting. For those shareholders or proxy holders viewing the webcast who wish to submit a question, you can do so by selecting the Ask a Question button located at the bottom of the screen. We ask that you submit each question separately and note that your questions will be limited to 532 characters, if you exceed that limit, your question will not be able to be submitted and you'll need to revise it. Your questions will be placed in a queue. We encourage you to submit questions now to assist in getting through as many of your questions as possible. When questions for each item of business are ready, I will read out the shareholders' name and I will read the question for the Chair to answer. If we receive a number of similar questions, these questions may be answered collectively in order, again, that we get through more of your questions today. If a question has been covered by an earlier question or by the Chair's or CEO's addresses, the Chair may decline to respond to the question again and those online questions may not be put to the meeting. If a large volume of questions are received, both here at the meeting and through the online webcast, it is possible that not all questions will be able to be answered individually but we will endeavor to answer as many of your questions as possible. The Chair will accept up to 2 comments or questions from each shareholder for each item of business. Questions put here at the meeting and through the online webcast that exceed this limit may not be put to the meeting. Questions about individual banking or personal shareholding matters will not be answered during this meeting. If you have a customer question, please speak with representatives from our group customer relations and customer advocate team who will be available after the meeting out in the ICC for you. If you are online, you will be contacted at the conclusion of the meeting to ensure that you receive the individual support that you need, representatives from CBA Share Registry, customer service and customer advocate teams are available to assist you. For those viewing the webcast, contact numbers are available by selecting the Contact Us button located at the bottom of the screen. So it's now my great pleasure to introduce Mr. Paul O'Malley, your Chair.

Thank you, Helen, and good morning to everyone who are here in person or online. I would also like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet today, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, and pay our respects to their elders past, present and emerging. On behalf of my fellow directors, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the 2023 Annual General Meeting of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. I'm informed that we have a quorum present, and I declare the 2023 Annual General Meeting of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia open. A Notice of Meeting has been distributed, and I will take it as read. I would now like to introduce your Board, the Chief Financial Officer and the Group Company Secretary. From my far right, Peter Harmer, Lyn Cobley, Genevieve Bell, AO; Rob Whitfield, AM, Chair of the Risk and Compliance Committee, who is standing for reelection today; Vicki Clarkson, our Group Company Secretary. And from my far left, Julie Galbo, and Templeman-Jones, Chair of the Audit Committee; Mary Padbury; Simon Moutter, Chair of the People and Remuneration Committee who is also standing for reelection today; Alan Docherty, our Chief Financial Officer; and Matt Comyn, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director. Also with us today are the other members of the bank's executive leadership team. Ms. Elizabeth O'Brien, the lead audit partner from our external auditor, PwC, is also in attendance today. Elizabeth was the lead audit partner for the external audit of the financial statements for the financial year ended 30 June 2023 and is available to respond to any specific questions you may have in relation to this audit. The agenda for today's meeting is as follows: First, I will comment on a number of matters, which are impSiortant to CBA and to you, our shareholders. Matt Comyn, our CEO, will then speak, and after Matt's address, we will proceed with the formal items of business as set out in the Notice of Meeting. I'm pleased to welcome you to our 2023 Annual General Meeting. I acknowledge shareholders who are here in person, those who are online as well as those who presubmitted questions ahead of the meeting. I will cover some of the key themes from those questions in this address. It has been an eventful 12 months since our last meeting, and there is much on which to provide an upSdate. Australia remains a desirable destination for labor and capital with a low unemployment rate and positive signs for the future. However, as you would know, many of the challenges I SiSspoke about last year remain. The legacies of COVID and natural disasters are still being felt across our communities. And many Australians are under financial pressure due to the sharp rise in the cost of living. Cybercrime, fraud and scams are increasing, and expectations are rising on organizations to manage the risks and capitalize on the opportunities presented by climate change. Throughout the year, we continued to support our customers and communities by helping them respond to a changing economic environment. Our purpose to build a brighter future for all continued to guide our decisions and actions as we served more than 17 million customers across the group in 2023. Our strategy, to build tomorrow's bank today for our customers, reflects a bold ambition. We aim to be the trusted financial partner in the lives of all our customers, and we are committed to using the bank's strength and reach to support our customers, our communities and the economy. Our sustained investment in technology underpins our digital leadership and throughout the year, we continued to build world-class engineering data and artificial intelligence capability. That investment has seen us create tools that give our customers better visibility of and control of their money and a more personalized and relevant way to interact with us. For a quarter of Australia's businesses, we are their main financial institution. Throughout the year, we made it easier for them to start run and grow businesses. The growth in our business lending demonstrates the bank's ability to help improve productivity and bolster economic stability. Empowering over 50,000 employees to help our customers more effectively has continued to be a focus for us. We want each interaction our customers have with us to be exceptional and we want to fix any problems fast. Our scale and position means we are well placed to help Australia transition to a more resilient and sustainable economy. Aligned to our purpose and strategy CBA remains committed to playing our part and supporting Australia's transition to a net-zero economy by 2050. The bank performed strongly during the 2023 financial year. We reported a cash net profit after tax of $10.2 billion, up 6% on the previous year. We announced a fully franked dividend of $4.50 per share, $0.65 higher than the 2022 dividend. We returned $10 billion to you, our shareholders, via dividends and share buybacks during the year. Prudent capital management means our balance sheet remains strong. This strength has enabled us to support customers as well as deliver positively for you, our shareholders. A strong balance sheet ensures an orderly execution of our funding plans in uncertain environments while maintaining flexibility, delivering stable earnings contributes to the strength of Australia's banking system, helping to provide confidence and stability for businesses and consumers. During the year, we continue to evolve the ways in which we deliver for our customers, communities, people and shareholders. Since the APRA Prudential Inquiry, we have significantly improved our governance, culture and accountability. That work has seen us reset our cultural foundations as well as our leadership principles, purpose and values. We will always be focused on sustaining the progress we have made and improving and strengthening our processes, mindset and behaviors. As I mentioned earlier, we know many Australians are under pressure in the current environment. While most of our customers remain well positioned, there is no doubt that many are finding the current environment very tough. We continue to see only a small number of customers falling behind on their payments, many customers have been able to take practical steps to adapt to the higher rate environment. We aim to proactively support customers in need. We are acutely aware that the challenges people face often disproportionately affect the most vulnerable. I'm pleased to let you know the momentum continues to grow in our Next Chapter initiative, which has now helped almost 5,000 victim survivors of domestic and financial abuse through the Financial Independence Hub delivered in partnership with Good Shepherd. The hub is delivering positive outcomes for participants as they move towards financial recovery, independence and increased financial resilience, no matter who they bank with. An issue of great concern to many Australians and to us at the bank is the rise of fraud and scams. Any loss a customer sustains through a fraud or scam is concerning, and we have made it a significant priority to reduce the incidence of this type of crime. It is encouraging to see CommBank customers' losses have decreased over the past 12 months as a result of some of the initiatives we have implemented. Matt will talk about some of the important actions we're taking. Climate change is an area where we received a number of presubmitted questions. This past year has been challenging for our customers and communities in Australia and New Zealand impacted by weather-related events. Managing the risks and opportunities of climate change and supporting our customers, both continue to be a focus. This year, we published our second Climate Report providing an update on our progress against the road map outlined in our inaugural Climate Report last year. During the financial year, we made further progress towards the sector-level glide parts we published in 2022. Building on these targets, we set new sector-level glide paths for Australian housing and heavy industry aligned with limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Our sustainable funding target of $70 billion in cumulative funding by 2030 helps us as we seek to support sustainable industries and asset types. We have provided $44.7 billion in cumulative funding towards the target. Our Environmental and Social Framework which sets out our approach to managing the environmental and social impacts of our business was also updated. And this year, we introduced new commitments to support the transition. In our framework update, the board carefully considered the right policy settings to support energy security, meet our net-zero aspirations, provide transparency to the market and assist businesses and communities through the transition. Subject to Australia having a secure energy platform, we will no longer be providing project finance to new expanded oil and/or gas extraction projects. We've clarified our expectations for certain customers to have published transition plans from 2025. These transition plans need to include Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. Noting the growing focus on natural capital and biodiversity, our E&S framework acknowledges the developments of the United Nations Biodiversity Conference and recognizes the importance of taking action to maintain, enhance and restore biodiversity. We have expanded our human rights commitments by expecting that our suppliers will respect the rights of indigenous peoples as outlined in our Supplier Code of Conduct. We remain focused on the critical issue of modern slavery and human trafficking. We're continuing to take action across the group to assess and address modern slavery and human trafficking risks in our operations and supply chain. We will be outlining our progress in our Annual Modern Slavery Statement. This year, we released our seventh Reconciliation Action Plan, seventh RAP, the third to achieve Elevate status. We released our first RAP back in 2008. The RAP sets out our plan to improve products and services for First Nations peoples, to increase the number of indigenous employees and to grow the participation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses in our supply chain and to support indigenous businesses, particularly in the area of carbon reduction initiatives. The development of our RAP was guided by our Indigenous Advisory Council, which we have worked with since 2014. In 2022, we also established our Indigenous Leadership Team. A group of indigenous leaders from within the bank who can act as a source of both advice and challenge. An important issue where we have carefully considered our role and on which we received presubmitted questions is the Voice. Supporting indigenous communities is aligned with our company purpose and Closing the Gap report that makes clear that social and economic outcomes for indigenous people in this country are unacceptable. Our own experience has been that listening to indigenous voices has improved the way we support First Nations customers, employees and community members. We said clearly in our Reconciliation Action Plan that we will support more First Nations' voices informing First Nations' solutions. Our support for reconciliation is long-standing and consistent with our focus on sustainable practices, policies and outcomes to create long-term value for our customers, communities and for our shareholders. For these reasons, we reached the view that the bank should be supportive of the Voice. We know that changes to the constitution are not made lightly, and we acknowledge that many of our staff customers and shareholders might believe that there are different ways to support Indigenous Australians. We are very respectful of these different views. Turning to the Board now. Current Nonexecutive Directors, Mr. Rob Whitfield, AM, and Mr. Simon Moutter are standing for reelection with the support of the Board. Genevieve Bell, AO, announced her retirement from the Board effective from the 31st of October 2023, as she prepares to take up her new role as the Vice Chancellor of the Australian National University. Ms. Bell was appointed to the CBA Board on the 1st of January 2019 and has been a member of both the People and Remuneration Committee and the Nominations Committee. On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank Genevieve for her significant contribution to CBA during her tenure. Genevieve's skills and experience have been extremely valuable to the Board. We congratulate Genevieve on her appointment as Vice Chancellor. We will continue to work on the CBA Board renewal to ensure succession arrangements are in place. Shareholders, your bank has performed well during this financial year. Our balance sheet strength has enabled us to support through challenging times. Our strategy is delivering for our stakeholders and our employees are working with our customers at the forefront of their decision-making and with our purpose, top of mind. The bank will continue to be guided by our purpose and your Board will continue to work closely with Matt and his leadership team to become the trusted financial partner for more Australians. I now invite our CEO, Matt Comyn to address this meeting.

Thank you, Paul, and good morning, everyone. Throughout the year, we've been very focused on supporting our customers, investing in our communities and providing strength and stability for the broader economy. As the Chair mentioned, we are very conscious that many Australians are feeling under pressure in the current environment. The rising cost of living continues to impact many of our customers. And while most remain well positioned, we also recognize that some of our customers are finding the current environment very tough. We are supporting our customers in a number of ways. We are contacting every customer as they're coming off a fixed rate mortgage to discuss options as well as providing flexibility and financial assistance for those who need it most. Our digital capabilities are playing a critical role in giving customers greater visibility and insights into their finances. More than 3.2 million of our customers have engaged with our money management tools like Bill Sense, Money Plan and Spend Tracker. And through our Benefits Finder feature, we've now connected customers with over $1 billion in discounts, entitlements and benefits. For our business banking customers, we help maximize cash flow with a new short notice deposit account and made it easier for them to obtain funding through our digital investment and process improvement. Protecting customers from cybersecurity threats, financial crime, scams and fraud is a real priority for us, and we've invested $750 million this year to keep our customers safe. We've launched a range of new digital protection features this year and have been able to prevent or recover over $200 million from scams targeted at our customers. One of these is CallerCheck, which is used 50,000 times per month. When we call one of our customers, we are now able to send an alert in the CommBank app, so that our customers have confidence that the person they are talking to is really from the Commonwealth Bank. NameCheck identifies if a customer is trying to send money to a place where the account number and the name do not match. This feature, for example, helped one of our customers avoid a $1.2 million mistaken payment and on 16 million occasions has provided customers with the reassurance that their money is going to the right place. Another new feature, CustomerCheck uses the CommBank app to further verify a customer's identity in branch. It is encouraging to see that between January and June this year, CommBank customer losses to scams decreased by more than 1/3 compared with those previous in the -- those recorded previously in 6 months a year earlier. We remain focused on educating our customers about what they can do to stay safe, and doing everything we can do to protect our customers and the broader community. This year, we have continued to execute our strategy to build tomorrow's bank today for our customers. With 35% of Australian consumers and more than 25% of Australian businesses considering us as their main financial institution, deep customer relationships are very important. Our long-term investments in technology, data and analytics capabilities has resulted in high customer engagement, enabling us to better understand our customers' needs and provide the best banking experience. This year, we launched a new version of the CommBank app with a simplified and enriched experience for our customers. We've made it easier for our customers to manage their personal and business accounts, find and access money management tools, discover money saving offers and invest using integrated CommSec features. Since launch, we've seen more customers using the app and more engagement in the app. For example, we had 33% more customers log into the app in the month of August than the same month a year ago, and we're now averaging over 11 million log-ins per day. At this rate, the CommBank app is on track to hit 4 billion customer logins in the next 12 months. While more and more customers shift towards digital banking, we still have the largest branch and ATM network in the country, with 40% of our branches based in regional Australia. We recognize the important contribution that regional Australia makes to our country and announced a unique approach among our peers pausing all CBA regional branch closures until the end of 2026 to further support these communities and better understand their needs. We hope that customers and communities who benefit from this decision and pause in closures will value that decision to stay. Ultimately, we would, of course, like to be able to serve more local councils, small businesses, farmers and homeowners in regional areas to ensure the sustainability and viability of our network and these locations. For business customers, we continue to believe that as Australia's largest financial institution, we have a clear role to play in providing support, particularly in the current environment. Our ongoing strategic investment in our business bank has resulted in strong customer engagement, deepening relationships and earnings growth and it now contributes approximately 40% of the bank's net profit after tax. And while we still have more work to do, we finished the financial year with peer leading customer advocacy measures for our digital banking offers as well as among consumer, business and institutional customer segments. Our people play a very significant role in driving customer engagement. And I'm, as always, deeply grateful to work alongside them in supporting our customers and our communities. We have continued to strengthen our cultural foundation through our leadership principles, purpose and values and are focused on sustaining the progress that we have made. This approach is resonating with our people with overall engagement and levels of pride inside the organization remaining high, and I'd like to thank them for the care, courage and commitment that they have demonstrated over the year. Our final results for the 2023 financial year reflect the strength of our business and a disciplined execution of our strategy. Our customer focus, coupled with consistent disciplined execution has delivered volume growth across all of our core businesses. Our statutory net profit after tax increased 5%, and our cash net profit after tax increased 6% supported by growth in net interest income, partly offset by higher loan impairment expenses and operating costs. With tighter and rapidly changing financial conditions, we've taken a prudent approach to managing risks, including credit, interest rate funding and liquidity risks. We've also continued to strengthen our balance sheet, and we remain well placed heading into a lower growth environment. Understandably, an area of focus for many people has been our profit. Ultimately, the size of the profit is a function of being Australia's largest financial institution. Today, over 17 million customers choose to bank with us and we're trusted to look after $900 billion of their savings and manage nearly $1 trillion in loans. This year, we lent $35 billion to small businesses to help them grow and helped 150,000 people by a new home and also helped depositors earn nearly $11 billion in additional interest income compared with the prior year. Over 12 million Australians also own shares in CBA as most Australians own part of CBA directly or through their superannuation fund, and we've returned $10 billion to shareholders in dividends and buybacks. Looking ahead, the fundamentals of the Australian economy remain strong. At the same time, we recognize that the impacts of higher inflation and higher rates are being felt unevenly across our customers and the broader economy. We expect pressure on households to ease as inflation continues to moderate. We believe the economy remains fundamentally sound and we remain optimistic about the outlook for our business and for the country. We are well provisioned for the changing financial conditions and our strong balance sheet provides flexibility to navigate the current environment and support our customers while delivering sustainable shareholder returns. As we look to the year ahead, we will continue to invest in our business and execute on our strategy to deliver our purpose of building a brighter future for all. We will remain focused on supporting our customers, investing in our communities and providing strength and stability for the broader economy. I'd like to thank our customers, our people and of course, you, our shareholders, for your ongoing support of the Commonwealth Bank. Thank you.

Thank you, Matt. As Chair of the meeting, I formally declare the poll on all resolutions open, and that the poll will close 15 minutes after the meeting closes. You now may vote on all resolutions. Link Market Services is the returning officer for this meeting with responsibility for overseeing the voting process. There are 4 items of business to be considered today. These are Consideration of the 2023 Financial Statements and Reports; Reelection of Directors; Adoption of the 2023 Remuneration Report and Grant of Securities to our CEO, Mr. Matt Comyn. The voting exclusions for items 3 and 4 are set out in the Notice of Meeting where undirected proxies have been given or default to the Chair of the meeting, they will be voted in favor of items 2 to 4 inclusive. We will now move to the first item of business, which is to receive and consider the financial report, the director's report and the auditor's report of the company for the financial year ended 30 June 2023. While there is no resolution for this item, there is an opportunity for shareholders to ask questions on the report, management of the company and on the audit. Our external auditor, PwC, has provided us with a question list that sets out a question submitted by shareholders before the meeting that is relevant to the content of the auditor's report or the conduct of the audit. A copy of the question list and PwC's response is available to shareholders at the Link registration desk in the foyer and by request to the Group Company Secretary. I now invite shareholders and proxy holders in the room to move to a microphone to ask any questions or make comments. As a reminder, please show your yellow or blue card provide your full name to the microphone attendant, who will introduce you to the meeting. I also invite shareholders and proxy holders to submit questions online.

Moving to -- I'll first take questions in the room before we move to questions online. We have a question at microphone 4.

Chair, I would like to introduce [indiscernible].

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

Good morning, Mr. [indiscernible].

My question is my daughter works for Commonwealth Bank. And I'm unable to share trade -- trade shares throughout the year because there is only very small window of opening of share trading. So is it a fair policy?

Thank you, Mr. [indiscernible] for your question. We do have a share trading policy for employees and their close associates. I'm very happy if you could move to one of our Group Customer Relations attendants who can get you in touch with some of the company's secretarial staff and perhaps just get into some more detail as to when you can and can't try and why that policy might be in effect. But more broadly, from a policy question, it is very important given that senior managers, in particular, have access to so much information about the bank that they only trade inside disclosed windows generally after the release of our half and full year results in this AGM. So that policy is very appropriate, both to protect our employees and their associates and the bank. But as it applies to you specifically, I would certainly refer you to some of our staff who will look for you and make contact. Thank you for your question. We have a question at microphone #2.

Chair, I would like to introduce Alexander Haege.

Welcome Mr. Haege.

Thank you, Chairman. Mr. Chairman, could you direct the meeting's attention to the relevant section of the Companies Act that allows the Board of the Commonwealth Bank to sequester shareholders' funds and use them for a blatantly political purpose, namely a $2 million contribution to the device of Yes campaign in the current referendum this Saturday, the 14th. And if the Board has a legal right to do so, then why didn't they give an equal amount to the No campaign, given that there would be? Many shareholders who would not support this constitutional change?

Thank you very much for your question. As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, the support for Voice is consistent with our long-standing commitment to reconciliation and to our purpose to build a brighter future for all. The matter was extensively -- our support for the Voice was extensively considered by the Board, sits within the power of the Board and the contribution was made of $2 million to AICR. We understand and respect that there are many different views in this society, but we introduced our first Reconciliation Action Plan in 2008. And as I mentioned in my remarks, our seventh Reconciliation Action Plan in 2023. The benefits we see from the Voice are broad. As a bank, we are a better bank when we can attract and retain the best possible talent that reflects the diversity of all of Australia. At the moment, we do not have a representative mix of indigenous employees in our bank, and we are working to achieve that. To do that, we are investing with the Board's support and management action in scholarships and traineeships to bring indigenous employees into the bank and to give them a safe and empowering working environment and the best opportunities possible. We're also working with indigenous businesses in the area of carbon sequestration because there is a demand for that product and we are sharing that product economically to the benefit of indigenous landowners, but for our customers -- also for our customers who want to access carbon credits. That flows through to the benefit of our shareholders. We have values of care, commitment and courage. We will care for all of our customers and employees. We will commit to long-standing initiatives that support reconciliation. As I mentioned, we're up to our seventh RAP.. And we will focus on matters of public policy that we think are important to our bank, to our employees, to our customers and to our shareholders. But I thank you for your question. It is well within the power of the bank to make that decision, but we fully understand that not everyone is supportive of it, but it's important that we, as a Board, do what we think is in the best interest of the bank to support our customers, our employees and you, our shareholders. You have a second question?

An addendum, yes. Thank you. I would like to move an amendment to the motion for the adoption of the 2023 accounts. My motion is as follows: that the adoption of the 2023 accounts be approved, subject to the repayment of the $2 million contribution to the Yes campaign by the Directors of the CBA. You haven't answered my question, what section of the companies act do you use to make political contributions taking the money from the shareholders who may or may not agree with you. All your other sentiments, yes, I'm over more indigenous participation in the bank, the scholarships, et cetera, by all means, that adds to the bank, but you have no right to take our money and put it into a political campaign.

There are many sections of the corporation's law that bestow expectations, obligations and powers with the directors, and that includes to operate in the best interest of the company. We believe we are operating in the best interest of the company. I accept your comment, we won't be tabling any further amendments in this meeting to any of the resolutions. It's really important to understand that the Board and the bank supports customers all of the time. You will note that during the floods and fires, we stepped up, we brought banking into communities that needed it. We expended shareholders' money supporting those customers. We've supported women through soccer and through cricket and through our support for victims of financial abuse, we're actually investing shareholders' money there. We think that supporting our purpose of building a brighter future for all is essential. We actually see the Voice as a policy issue. And as I mentioned, we have been long-standing in our support of indigenous and First Nations peoples. We first RAP in 2008 through to 2023, our seventh RAP. We will continue that support. But as I mentioned, I acknowledge that not everyone is supportive of that, but I thank you for your attendance today. Thank you very much. We're restricting 2 questions at a time. Very happy to welcome you back to the mic, but at the moment, I might move to microphone #1. Thank you.

Chair, I would like to introduce [ Mr. Michael Sanderson ].

Welcome, [ Mr. Sanderson ].

Thank you. I'd like to make a comment first before my 2 questions, if I could.

I think it's 2 questions or a comment. I'm happy to welcome you back, but please feel free to choose which 2 of those 3 you would like to start with.

We'll do the questions. In the introduction, there was a comment there that Australia wasn't immune to inflation. This question relates to Central Bank [ group thing ] and the cash rate. With one exception, the [ group thing ] of the Western Consensus Central Bank claims in order to control largely cost-push inflation, they need to raise interest rates. The exception is major G7 country, Japan, or economy of Japan that has an aging population, less natural capital and is exposed to the same global economic conditions. Japan has maintained a cash rate of minus 0.1%. It has low inflation, 3.2%, currently, no currency crisis and its citizens are better off as a result of federal fiscal policy initiatives. My 2 requests are, would CBA, in the interest of its customers and its shareholders, request that the Australian Bankers Association very powerful in Canberra, lobby the federal government to be more fiscally proactive like Japan? And will Mr. Comyn undertake whilst on one of his overseas joints [ with Alba ] undertake the point out that his government fiscal inertness and the unnecessary damage they are afflicting on CBA customers, shareholders and Australia generally?

Thank you, Mr. Sanderson. That was very thoughtful. Firstly, I'll just respect -- reiterate our respect to the Reserve Bank and the skill that it needs to demonstrate in a steering Australia through volatile periods in the global economy. In comparing any country, we have to look at the level of unemployment, the level of economic activity the level of inflation, the level of immigration, the level of capital investment, commodity prices, productivity, there are so many factors that need to be taken into account, and the Reserve Bank has to do that. The Commonwealth Bank actively works for our customers to ensure that the data and information that we see about the economy is actually provided to the policymakers in a transparent and informative manner. I think our policymakers look to CBA, but to many institutions across Australia as well as inside government to get that information. The benefits of careful and deliberative monetary policy, taking all of those factors into account, have demonstrated that when we get it right, Australia can sustain extended periods of economic growth. But I think by reference to your comment, many people do see higher interest rates as affecting them at the moment and they're having to make decisions. We will engage with government. I'm not quite sure I agree with the characterization of the relationships, but we will engage with government where we feel that the policy settings aren't right. And there are areas of policies such in payments that we actually do push pretty hard. But I think the Reserve Bank structure in Australia and from time to time, it is reviewed by government is really important. It is actually filled with very capable people and they take factors into account that are both Australia specific, but do look also to what's going on in global economies. I think that perhaps encapsulates both of your questions. Thank you very much. Very happy for you to ask questions again. That one question far away. We might come back to microphone #1 for question number two.

Can you kill the mic. So one can't make a follow-up comment.

I just hope they do it to me.

This question is for Mr. Comyn. At the last AGM, Mr. Corfield, asked a question on my behalf. In the answer he explained, we do create deposits in the system. We expand money supply when we lend money. Your statement clearly confirms that banks are not revenue constrained, rather they are capital constrained. Put another way, bank lending is limited by regulated capital requirement rather than 100% external deposits and borrowing as is the public perception. The ACCC in their determination regarding the takeover of Suncorp by ANZ stated the ACCC considers that coordination is most likely to involve the major banks engaging in either expressly or tacitly in a live and let live style of conduct or pattern of behavior to achieve soft or muted price or nonprice competition sufficient to either maintain and/or protect their existing market shares and/or not challenge the status quo" There are a lot of bank customers that are struggling with loan and mortgage repayment as a consequence of the banking oligopolies synchronized increase in -- of the interest rate in line with the RBA cash rate. I'm not suggesting that the cash rate does not impact on some -- on existing loans and mortgages, normalize suggesting that the bank does not leverage these facilities, downstream of the primary transaction. But that should not be the burden of the primary borrower. It should be on the bank, notwithstanding, it is promoted by mainstream media that raising the RBA overnight cash rate impacts 100% on the balance of a loan and/or mortgage. My question is, with your comment, we also do create deposits in the system. We expand money supply when we lend money, front of mind. How would the CBA justify increase in the interest rate in line with the RBA overnight cash rate or 100% of the balance of loans and mortgages that are based on a created deposit? Now when answering Mr. Comyn, unlike Mr. Narev I'm not asking you to temper your sense of justice, I'm requesting that you temper your desire to engage the [ bulk of ] banking instead focus on the primary transaction.

Thank you, Mr. Sanderson, and I guess I'll determine who answers the questions that are put to the meeting today. But I picked up a couple of themes to your question, but I'm going to try and simplify it. The role of the bank is, firstly, as you mentioned, to ensure that we have a very strong balance sheet. Without a strong balance sheet, we cannot support the Australian economy. The balance sheet comes in predominantly 2 main parts: the deposits, which we have to actively compete for, from our customers to provide either a transaction banking service that meets their need or a term deposit or other savings product from which they can get a return. And I will note as the interest rates have gone up over the last couple of years or last year or so, our returns to deposit holders has increased by 5x. And on deposit -- term deposit rate at a rate greater than mortgage rates. The other side of the balance sheet is we have to borrow from offshore. If we cannot borrow from offshore and if we cannot effectively compete the deposit, then we cannot lend into the Australian economy and support consumers and businesses to actually drive economic growth. That may well increase money supply, but it is the role of a bank. The bank needs to have a strong balance sheet to compete the deposits, to source capital from overseas and then to lend money to customers to support them. That is what we as a Board are focused on through all our committees to make sure we get that right. And we're trying to do the best we can at that at the moment. I might pause there and move on to another question. Thank you, Mr. Sanderson. Feel free to come back to the mic, but that was quite a long question. I think we need to give some other people an opportunity. We might move now to microphone #5.

Chair, I would like to introduce Robert Caterson.

Welcome, Mr. Caterson.

Thank you very much, Chairman. My first question is, are we still paying the government another 2% tax that the former government levied on all banks at the present time?

Did government levy, Matt...

Yes. Yes, we are. There is a deposit levy that was introduced, and I believe in the FY '23, that cost to the Commonwealth Bank was $384 million.

Second question, Mr. Caterson, sorry.

Well, the second question is I find it very sort of satisfying for both the bank and the shareholders that we've got a very strong commitment to female sport, and we've seen the benefits and emotional dividends by supporting the Matildas, female cricketers. My question is when this bank awards sponsorship sporting organizations, do they balance out the sports being influenced by sports gambling organizations in determining where the bank will support that sport because these sporting gambling organizations have a very negative influence on society and also elevate the levels of domestic violence and other antisocial behaviors. I just want to know what the bank's views are on when they do sort of consider these sponsorships?

Thank you very much, Mr. Caterson. We make decisions on sponsorships to support as best we can, community participation in sport, which we think is actually really important for Australians to get out and participate. We are supporting females because we think that there is not as much economic capacity going into female sports as is the case for male sport. And in supporting female sports, we're really keen to encourage positive role models, and I think you would have seen that in our advertisements are people who are well respected, do a great job within their sport that young people, in particular, can aspire to. And in the context of gambling, we don't particularly want to participate in the gambling side of sport. We're very much focused in good role models, community participation and ensuring that we can support these people effectively have a brighter future, whether that's through business or sport, we're really keen to do that. We have a commitment to gender diversity within our bank and our focus on female sport, in particular is an area of focusing on that.

That's very commendable for the bank and for the society anyway.

Thank you very much. We might move now to microphone #1.

Chair, I'd like to introduce [ Dr. Luis Gomes ].

Welcome, [ Dr. Gomes ].

Good morning, Chairman and the Board. For those of you at the meeting, the ASA represents in this case, about 1,400 shareholders in the Commonwealth Bank. That's about 3.3 million shares, which would place us collectively, if we could do that at #9 on your top 20 list. So that just puts you in some perspective. Firstly, we'd like to thank you, Chairman, for meeting with us a few weeks ago. We particularly like to extend our appreciation yet again to the bank's management team led by Matt Comyn for the excellent financial results achieved for FY '23 during a period of considerable economic uncertainty. And we particularly appreciate the way you balance the needs of your customers, particularly those struggling with shareholders. I think that's really commendable. And I don't think it's any coincidence but good financial results follow good behaviors and good governance. My question is, you explained to us your concerns around conducting this AGM as a hybrid meeting. Given that all other major ASX-listed banks hold hybrid meetings as well as most other major companies, could you share with those attending this meeting, what those particular concerns are?

Thank you very much, Dr. Gomes. And again, thank you for taking the time to meet with us. We've listened to the feedback from last year's Annual General Meeting where we -- so this year, we are able to have people here present. We are webcasting the AGM and a recording of the webcasting will be available tomorrow. We have enabled questions in the room today and we will be enabling questions online and presubmitted questions. And the voting process for online was to be completed some days ago, but you can vote here in person today. We think for the scale of our business and the appropriate engagement of our shareholders that, that gives every opportunity for people to vote fairly and to ask questions either in advance here in person or online today. And that's really what we think is the right outcome for our company's AGM. And we might move now to microphone #6.

Chair, I would like to introduce Paul Blackmore.

Welcome, Mr. Blackmore.

My name is Paul Blackmore from the Finance Sector Union. We represent bank workers across Australia, including workers at CBA. I have 2 questions. Recently, CBA committed to no further regional branch closures until at least the end of 2026. This commitment comes off the back of the Senate inquiry into regional bank closures. However, the same commitment has not been given to CBA's metropolitan branches, which continue to be closed or to any of its bank west branches in Western Australia. As Australia's largest, most profitable bank and after posting a record profit of $10 billion, what commitment is CBA willing to give to its customers and communities across Australia that they will continue to have access to face-to-face banking services by experienced CBA staff?

Thank you very much, Mr. Blackmore for your question. Firstly, just to acknowledge that CBA has the most branches and ATMs of any bank in Australia and that 40% of our branches are in regional areas. We have made a commitment that there will be no regional branch closes, as you mentioned, for the next 3 years. And during that period of time, we understand how important branches can be in all areas of Australia, but particularly regional areas. We will be engaging with local communities to look towards how to develop long-term sustainability plans where local communities support local branches. And so that is a process that we will engage in over the next 3 years. In relation to our urban footprint, we will continue to look at what is the right footprint in urban areas, and we've opened some branches, but we are closing others. But I do note that there is a substantive trend in Australia and globally to online and digitally banking. 92% of our customers engage online. We have to have the best, most interactive, usable online interface for customers, and we're investing billions in that regard. But equally, those customers who choose to engage physically, as I said, we have the largest footprint, that's CBA's legacy, and it's something that we will continue to focus on. But we're clearly calling out that over the next 3 years, a lot of work has to be done to get community engagement, particularly in regional areas to engage in how to develop sustainable branch models with experienced staff, and we can't do anything without experienced, motivated and capable staff in our entire brand network. I think you have a second question.

I have a second question. Despite CBA's record profit of $10 billion, we're aware that this year alone CBA has cut over 1,000 Australian jobs in retail, operations and other areas of the business. This undoubtedly has an impact on those workers directly affected by redundancy and those who remain working at the bank picking up the workload of those who have left, all who have helped to contribute to the bank's success. CBA publicly is quick to point out that the head count has increased by 700 people to 54,000. Looking at this year's annual report at Page 42, CBA's Australian workforce has actually reduced by 4% from 38,000 to 36,697. It's the only jurisdiction to see a reduction. Whilst at the same time, CBA India's workforce has expanded by a massive 65% to almost 5,000 workers. As Australia's largest, most profitable bank, what guarantee will CBA give to its Australian workforce about their ongoing job security? And what is CBA doing to invest in secure local jobs?

Thank you very much, Mr. Blackmore. We can't do anything at CBA with our most -- without our most important asset, which are our people. We have long-term committed people. We have graduates. We have people approaching retirement. We have people all across Australia. CBA will always involve itself in working with its people to provide career opportunities, career development, career learning in a safe and empowering workplace. We're involved in an incredibly competitive environment, whether it's big tech competition coming from overseas that only operates here through the Internet, whether it's new competitors in the Australian market or whether it's a change in shape, as I mentioned before, of having to engage digitally with our customers. In that context, we have to continually reshape, restructure and change the skills that we have in the bank. We've set up engineering hubs where we're hiring in engineers in most of the major cities in Australia to support that investment. We also have significant requirement, particularly in the areas of KYC rules, which involves us validating the details of every new customer. Every bank in Australia, every regulated entity almost in Australia also has to undertake that activity. There are not the skills in Australia to meet that need, and it is a manual people-oriented role. In that perspective, and we've done this for a long time is, we've gone to other countries to source those skills to complement our Australian activities with the life of activity in Australia. And in call centers for instance they're all in Australia. So CBA is committed to Australia. We're absolutely integrated to Australia. We will always have a large workforce in Australia. We will be modifying that workforce. But where we have to, we will complement that with skills from wherever we need to attract them. So as the economy changes, we need to change with it, but we cannot do it anywhere with our really good committed Australian staff. So thank you for your question. I might move now to microphone #5.

Chair, I would like to introduce Kyle Robertson.

Welcome, Mr. Robertson.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the other members of the Board. It's Kyle Robertson from Market Forces here. I have a climate question. But firstly, I would like to acknowledge that at last year's AGM, through a shareholder resolution, hundreds of shareholders called on you to demonstrate that our bank will not finance fossil fuel expansion and actively make the climate crisis worse. This year, thankfully, we have not filed a shareholder resolution acknowledging the number of positive signs we have seen from CommBank recently. These include a significant drop in fossil fuel lending in 2022. And more recently, in August, a commitment from the bank to not finance the vast majority of fossil fuel companies from 2020, 2025 that do not have an independently verified plan to cut all emissions, including from their end use of coal, oil and gas in line with the Paris Agreements well below 2 degrees upper warming limit. We do want to make it abundantly clear that the job of pulling our bank in line with its climate commitments is still not done. And that's, in the meantime, prior to 2025, we will not accept another cent going to fossil fuel expansion from CommBank. We have sent a letter to the Board this morning from 361 shareholders outlining our expectations for future years and our expectations that the bank will continue to progress on climate and meet our expectations. And with that, I would like to ask a question about our mission from CommBank's recent climate policy. Now CommBank introduced new project finance restrictions, as we touched on in your opening address, Mr. Chairman. These included ruling out project finance for critical infrastructure such as transmission pipelines that will unlock new oil and gas fields. Now this is welcome, very much so. However, a key missing part of that was that CommBank did not have a policy or did not say it would rule out new LNG facilities or LNG facilities that will be used to unlock those new oil and gas fields. My question is, why was that the case? And why was this permitted?

Thank you very much, Mr. Robertson. Thank you for the opportunity to engage with you and your colleagues. As you identified, we have made 2 substantive changes to our E&S Framework this year. The first is to rule out project finance in new gas and oil extraction projects. Thank you for acknowledging that. The second is that we will require certain of our customers who operate in that space to have Paris-aligned transition plan by 2025, that includes Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. And we will have them independently assessed. It is not easy for companies to produce those. 2025, we think, will come around very, very quickly, but we're engaging with those customers today. And following the conversations we had, we have disclosed our LNG exposure, which is de minimis, but from your perspective, exists. So I acknowledge that as well. We will continue to focus on how to mitigate and understand and implement our commitments, which we are going to focus on and which we clearly disclosed in the Climate Report, and that will include all of the areas that you've asked and commented on. And I would say that we've committed to adjust our E&S Framework every 2 years. You've just referred to the latest framework, and we will be considering and focusing on the next revisions over the next 2 years. But we can't underestimate how hard the transition is going to be for not only Australian businesses but also for Australian communities. There are many individuals who are being affected by both the physical effects of climate change, but also the transition effects. But every day, Australian is working in the coal industry, for example, there needs to be support the transition from coal for their individual employment, for their families and for their communities. So as a bank, with our purpose to build a brighter future for all, the just transition is as important, but the commitments we've made are the commitments that we've made, and we'll continue to engage on those. I thank you for your time.

I do have a second question.

I'm sure you do.

So my question is, basically it will be a brief one. But in the spirit of the project finance restrictions you've outlined in your E&S Framework, for instance, no transmission pipelines, if they're going to be used exclusively to unlock new oil and gas fields. If CommBank is approached for an LNG facility, whose primary purpose is in conjunction with the use of the new oil and gas fields, would that be ruled out in the spirit of the other finance restrictions that you have announced this year?

It would be very hard to meet our requirements. I'm not going to be black and white because there's always nuances, but it would be very hard to meet our requirements. And I would just highlight that Australia's energy security is really important to us as well, and that is included in our Climate Report. AEMO has said that there does need to be a transition in our generation perspective in Australia that does require gas plants. The view is that there's potentially sufficient gas in Australia to meet that. So we would hope that, that addresses it. But I think we're very happy to keep engaging to make sure that the policy evolves, but the commitments we've made in this E&S Framework are the commitments to date. And as I said, we will continue to look at what we evolve into over the next couple of years. But just again highlighting that the transition is going to be difficult for so many Australians. We now move to microphone #4.

Chair, I would like to introduce [ Dudy Jap ]

Welcome, Mrs. [ Jap ] and I'll just note that after this question, we will go online for a while, but then we will come back to the room.

Okay. Thanks, Mr. Chairman and the Board. I've got 2 questions, one about AI and one about blockchain. Okay. The first question that I have here on Page 15 and 65 on your Annual Report, you don't mention about large language models like your partnership with H2O OpenAI Microsoft, Meta's Llama and Alphabet Bard basically, just mentioned it does personalize customer experience. Is that -- just wondering, how is that being used to help train your models and also in the risk description under artificial intelligence, there's nothing mentioned about the word privacy. Is our data being deidentified -- or how has it been identified? Or can I identify us? And how would we know if your -- if our data is being used in your AI models? And also, is it going to minimize when, for example, applying for home loans, does that help?

Thank you very much for your questions. I think they're very pertinent to Australian society today. Privacy and de-identification of data are absolutely critical in any model that we use. And I think it sounds like you're an expert. But AI, artificial intelligence, is based on models and those models have rules and they use data. We absolutely have agreed and helped the government, in fact, define the ethical framework that should sit around AI and the manner in which data and privacy of that data is used. And I'll get Matt to jump into some more of the detail. But it is important, and the Board does focus, and we have some real expertise on the Board to ensure that models, the data they used and their training are in-house to CBA can be tested and ensured that there's no bias. And it's not biased, it's just a bias in the way that data might be analyzed, and we get -- we have a feedback loop within the business to make sure that, if data is used to support customer, for instance, positive outcomes in Benefit Finder that it is absolutely appropriate in the way that it does there. There's a lot of expertise within the bank, and I made the reference about hiring extra engineers with that expertise with the right values and behaviors to actually operate in that space. That's an area upon which we're focused. In terms of the specific details about how the team is doing that internally, I'll get Matt to comment.

Thanks, Paul, and thank you very much for the question. As you would imagine, if you think about over the last 100 years to the Commonwealth Bank, there's a number of calculations that have been done traditionally with the pen and paper and then a calculator we use models for a variety of different purposes, including determining whether we can or should approve a particular loan. Now there are a spectrum of analytical techniques, and you touched on specifically the partnership that we have with H2O. Before I go into that in very brief detail, I'd just underscore a comment that the Chair made that the privacy, ethics and safely managing both the data and any of the models that we're using is at the absolute front of mind for both the Board and for the management team. To give you an idea of something that we're doing in -- with H2O and it's not using customer data, it's actually something that we talked about externally. We've used a large language model, which we've integrated into the H2O suite, which we've run all of the bank's processes through and guides and product information such that it provides a very intuitive way for one of our employees to look up and have the specific information that can assist the customer on the spot as opposed to manually having to navigate through a number of different sort of product or process libraries. But this is clearly an area that is very important. I think very important for all companies in Australia and around the world. But I just want to underscore again the significant importance that we're putting on a number of those principles. And as Paul mentioned, we contributed to the national ethic standards that were developed and it will continue to be a focus to make sure we're using any of the data that we have very safely and consistent with what we would expect our customers would see from us.

Okay. And my second question is about blockchain and cryptocurrency. First of all, I can see nowhere in your Annual Report that you mentioned that. And you do -- and in various news articles, you do support that in some way, shape or form, but I find it to be odd that you're restricting transfers to finance, for example. But also with blockchain, can that help in cybersecurity, privacy because it's hard to manipulate data if it's in the blockchain, especially with -- and or NFTs and smart contracts help in your AML and also your KYC requirements because there's going to be a reduction in errors, your thoughts about that please?

Thank you very much. I think crypto first, we launched a pilot some time ago, which we put on hold as we work through the best ways to make that safe and secure for customers. In relation to scams and frauds and you mentioned some companies there that we're very focused on the fact that a lot of scams and frauds these money go out of bank accounts into crypto. So we have actually taken steps to put friction into the transfer process and kept some transfers of money leaving back accounts and going into crypto. And it is one of the reasons why we have seen our customers have a 30% reduction in loss to scams and fraud in the past 6 months compared to the previous 6 months. So the safe and security of the use of crypto is something that we're very, very focused on. In relation to blockchain, we are running trials, particularly as it relates to digital currencies and other forms of contract pursued, if I call it that way. But we have nothing to go into implementation at the moment. We're actually focused on that, and we will continue to test and understand how it may be of use to the bank. Thank you very much for your question. If we move now to -- we're going to go online for some questions, and then we'll revert back to the room shortly. Helen?

Thanks, Chair. A question from Emily Cross. What is CBA doing to keep its customer information safe from cyberattacks?

Safety and security of customer information is an absolute priority at the bank. And in the past year, we've invested $750 million to protect our customers and our community from the threat of financial crime, cybersecurity and fraud and scams. We mentioned at the AGM last year that the Board spends an incredible amount of time focused on that, as does the Risk and Compliance Committee. And in fact, as does the People and Remuneration Committee to make sure we've got the right talent and capability within the bank to actually be able to make sure we've got the skills, the systems and the expenditure. It is one of the most important risk items, if not the most important risk item that we can focus on in today's world as a bank, and it's something that we take incredibly seriously.

Chair. A number of shareholders have asked a question on this topic. This one is representative. It's from [ Alan Hughes ]. Why do shareholders not get a discount rate on a mortgage?

That's a good question. I think as shareholders -- you as shareholders are actually doing very well. The bank is run extremely well. We have a good balance sheet and we're actually delivering good returns. And I'll talk today that the $10 billion that in the last 12 months has gone to shareholders primarily by the way of dividends but also share buybacks. In relation to customers, we have to be competitive with our customers. We have to offer our customers the best products on mortgages, on deposits, and that's what we do. So as a shareholder, customer of the bank you have the opportunity to participate twice. And I think it's really important that we keep customers and focus on all of our customers and reward shareholders by getting our customer engagement, our competitive position and our suite of products in the most effective way provided to customers so that we engage with the biggest pool of customers possible. And I think that's probably the way we'll continue to operate.

Chair a number of questions similar to this one have been submitted by shareholders. This one is representative, and it's from [ Shannon Gomes ]. While I appreciate the results of your recent increase in profits, I question the need to keep increasing your rates as the effect has been quite negative for your borrowers and the public generally. It also can't be good to have so many customers who are looking at defaulting.

It's -- as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, it is really challenging time with higher interest rates and particularly for customers coming off fixed rates on to variable rates. As Matt mentioned, we've spoken to all of those customers that we've been able to get in contact with if any customer has any concerns in that regard, we do have Group customer Relations team to deal with it -- sorry, to meet with you and have a conversation. We acknowledge distress and vulnerability. We are seeing that people are making tough decisions at the moment. And we will absolutely be available to talk with you through that. The Reserve Bank puts up the interest rates. And as I mentioned, our deposit rates have -- deposit customers have seen the benefit of that substantially through the past 12 months. But it isn't indicated that the Reserve Bank does actually require us or want us to adjust rates. It's up to us as to how high or how low, but it is a very competitive market, both on the mortgage side and the deposit side. And we will meet the market, but we will only keep customers if we're competitive. But again, I would say that we are seeing pretty decrease to the hardship line at lower levels than before COVID, but they are just starting to tick up, but it is an area that we're absolutely focused in trying to support our customers.

Chair, a question from Rita Mazalevskis. CBA is within PwC's top 25 by market cap. Given the recent exposure of PwC's wrongdoings and the reach of international companies involved with CBA's day-to-day business, for example, service providers and international transactions derived from borrower loans. Has CBA undertaken to have PwCs, accounts and records on behalf of CBA auditor, particularly where breaches and fraud could be involved? Given asset reported, there was a risk PwC audit teams had not obtained sufficient, appropriate, audit evidence in 18% of audit areas.

Thank you very much for your question. PwC provides independent audit advice review and assurance services for the CBA. The quality that we have seen from PwC in relation to our accounts and the processes has been first class. We know that they're filed and reviewed by regulators from time to time. And we know that PwC has had a very challenging time and has learned from that time. I personally have had 2 meetings with our CEO to discuss the renewal program that has been publicly and transparently released. Clearly, like everyone, we are concerned the development, but the independence and the capability that we have seen from their audit team, I think, works to the benefit of CBA but we will always look at what developments occur there and decide what decisions, if any, to make differently in the future.

Chair this submission includes multiple questions and comments on the 1 topic, how would you likely to proceed?

I think if we could just do 2 questions, that would be appropriate, and we can come back to that if the person resubmits.

Question -- or questions from [ Lawrie Dennis ]. Mr. Comyn, could you please advise the shareholders what is the bank's plan for managing the upgrading the credit limits of the bank's credit card holders? This is due, I understand, to federal government changing bank regulations. This does not cover the impact of inflation. Does this involve a customer making a new application for the change in their card credit limit?

I'm going to ask our CEO to address that question.

Yes, happy to. Look, there's a couple of regulations that may be relevant. One was specific responsible lending regulations around credit cards. The second, and particularly if you're contracting your experience from a number of years ago, the bank was able to proactively offer a credit limit increase to customers. We are no longer able to do that under those regulations. And so I get to your point that the inflation if you would like to receive a higher credit limit, you would need to make a separate application. And obviously, we'd be delighted to try and assist you with that.

Chair, there is a question from shareholder, [ Steve Newen ]. What is the future of AI at the Commonwealth Bank, particularly in regard to ongoing staff numbers?

We seek to play a leadership role in how AI is ethically and effectively rolled out inside the bank and how it's used in Australia. We actually see AI is providing opportunity to provide better services and more focused services to customers, unrelated to staff numbers because we have to have the right people to support the development of AI, but the right people also to engage with customers and undertake so many activities within the bank. So it's something that will develop in parallel and in support and in complement of our people. But it needs to be, as Matt said, and as we've referenced, done in an ethically responsible and safe and secure model. So that's the way that we will proceed.

Chair, I have 2 questions from [ Joe Alvaro]. Why were shareholders not consulted about the millions of dollars donated to the yes voice referendum campaign by the CBA? Why wasn't this money used instead to improve the very poor customer service levels at the bank, which includes customers waiting for over 1 hour for service over the phone.

Thank you very much for that question. I'll start with the second one first. We have invested substantial additional money to add more customer service agents to bring down wait times and in recent times, those wait times have improved and to be frankly associated complaints would that have also reduced. So we took onboard that feedback, and we made the investment. In relation to the yes campaign and the voice, I believe I've answered that question in some detail.

Chair a question from Rita Mazalevskis. Board skills matrix set out skills and experience considered essential to the effectiveness of the Board and its committees. Yellow is high competency, blue, practiced and green awareness. Digital and technology shows 3 Board members with high competency, 5 practice and 2 awareness. How does the Board with overall accountability for governance and risk framework since this level of expertise is sufficient, given exposure is personal information, privacy breaches and cybercrime fraud where customers' money and identity is stolen, continues?

Thank you for your question. I think Board renewal and Board skills matrix are absolutely an important focus as they should be for shareholders, for regulators, but particularly for the Board. We have and require a range of skills and experience on the board from banking to technology, to AI to climate, but just the operational experience of how to run large enterprises to support people, to be able to understand remuneration framework and performance culture, leadership values, behaviors, there's an entire range. What we do with the skills matrix is we actually mark ourselves reasonably hard. And as an example, in banking, one has to have had decades of experience and see your leadership roles in banks to score a 3 in banking. If you like me and you are from outside the financial sector, regardless of the leadership role, I'm always going to score low on specific banking experience, but that doesn't mean I can't ask you a tough question from time to time. What we need to do as well is to ensure that education is provided not only to the Board but to the leadership team and to the entire bank and we have a huge education program, particularly in AI, blockchain, privacy and other areas to make sure that everyone comes on that learning journey. And that's something that we focus on. So from the board, from time to time, we have to make sure that we adjust our skills that we look for areas that we might need to bolster and that's a dynamic activity that we undertake and are undertaking real time. I might now move back to the room for a moment, if that's possible. We'll go to microphone #5.

Chair, I would like to introduce Mrs. Caulfield.

Welcome. Mrs. Caulfield.

Good morning, Mr. O'Malley, Board members and fellow shareholders. I wanted to personally thank Mr. O'Malley for making the time to meet with our family last year and listening to our experience with Commonwealth Bank. We appreciate your time. So again, thank you. This year, ASCA has received a record number of complaints, up around 30% from last year. I read your annual report, and it's largely growing about CBA's improvements and aspiration. When I think about the Royal Commission, the $700 million AUSTRAC fine and the systemic failures in the APRA prudential report, this walk is a disconnect with how you talk in your annual report. The lift experience of families and customers does not always get through to the Board, hence, our personal family meeting with you, Mr. O'Malley. In your annual report on Page 33, Australians was scanned $3.1 billion in 2022. CBA has name checked software you share with government. Recently, we paid a frame using our ANZ online banking and ANZ provided a warning, we do not match account names with account numbers. My question is, will CBA share your software without a bank?

Thank you for your question, Mrs. Caulfield. We're on a journey of improvement and I would have to say that our performance to date than prior to that Royal Commission and the Prudential Inquiry has improved, as acknowledged by APRA releasing the capital overlay post the prudential inquiry, by a reduction, we are the largest bank and you mentioned through ASCA, there are substantial complaints. They're resolved predominantly on the spot or if not, within 5 days that there are a tail of learnings that we are actually seeing at the Board and requiring management to assess on both an ad hoc basis and a systemic basis. And that focus will absolutely continue because what we have learned is that getting our engagements with customers right is the best way to serve customers, but it's also the best way to attract customers. So customer moments that matter, customers items that we don't get right is an area of incredible focus by the Board and the committees, and we discussed it quite regularly. In relation to NameCheck, I'll get Matt to just elaborate on how that is actually applied. But you mentioned scams and frauds and Matt mentioned in his speech. NameCheck, caller ID, the adjustments for crypto had seen an absolute reduction in the loss of reported scams and fraud from our customers in the past 6 months compared to the prior 6 months. We take that obligation to be effective, really important. There's so much that we can do as a bank, but there are also systems issues that need to be addressed more broadly. The source of scams and frauds, what telecommunication platform or social media platform may come over, the form that they make, how we can identify those quickly and put them into a national pool and have them stopped those conversations, the conversations that we're absolutely having with government and regulators because we need an Australian system to address that. There are things the banks can do specifically but there are things that we need to influence that have done on a systematic process. And that is an area where absolutely deeply engaged in talking with both regulators and government, but I'll ask Matt to comment more specifically.

As Paul mentioned, this is a very important issue. And specifically to your question on name check. Yes, we've offered to make it available to other financial institutions. And secondly, we're building what's known as an application programming interface, which will enable our businesses to also be able to call on. I think it's extremely important that not only that we're protecting our customers. And of course, we want to be a leader in that area. We're also very open and willing to work with other companies and financial institutions to improve the security of the overall system.

Chair, I would like to introduce Mr. Kazim.

Good morning. Thank you very much. You painted a pretty rosy picture of the bank's financial position. And I did read in the fin review that your share of the home loan is slipping to West Bank in a few other banks. Now what are you doing to address that erosion?

It is a very competitive market, Mr. Kazim and Matt spoke at length about that topic at the full year results. So I'm actually going to get Matt to elaborate on the competitive response noting that the Board is also asking that question because it's important that we maintain share, but it's also very important that we do it economically and understand that it's important that we deliver the right return on capital for using shareholders' money as we actually price and compete for mortgages. And perhaps getting that balance right is not always easy, but the loss of share, I think, was done for the right reasons was to make sure that we were appropriately using shareholders' money, but I'll ask Matt to elaborate.

Yes. So it is clearly a very important obligation for us to support our customers in their home buying needs. You might have seen earlier in the year that we talked about pricing in the market was unsustainable. And sometimes it's also referred to as below the cost of capital. And if it's helpful, I mean, what we mean is basically, if loans are being offered to customers and they're generating cash flow or interest repayments that are less than an investor's cost of capital especially destroying value for shareholders. So we're reluctant to do that. And so clearly, we have to make decisions every day on how to best support our customers, how to think about sort of volume and what's reported is volume, but what's equally, if not more important, is volume and margin and risk. And so it's really important for us to get all of those right to make sure that we can both support our customers and deliver sustainable returns to our shareholders.

But you did say that business activity is improving. Is the increase in business activity, making up the loss of a home share market?

I think one thing that we'll identify and Matt again can elaborate, but we have made a very strong commitment to our business bank over the last couple of years and the performance of the business bank has improved substantially. And again, within a return on capital, earnings but also getting the risk of metrics right. So that has been a strategic focus, supported by the Board and the management team that is being executed very well by management, but again, Matt if you'd like to elaborate.

The business performance has been strong across all of the segments. In particular, as the Chair mentioned, we've made some investments in our business bank over the last few years, and the team have executed extremely well. And so we've seen very strong growth there. But of course, it's really important to support all of our customers, including our retail customers. And against those same factors, we want to make sure that we're delivering a great experience. We've got customers that feel that we value that relationship. They feel like they have a very good rewarding experience. And also, we deliver reasonable and sustainable returns to our shareholders over the long term.

What are the figures showing now? Is the business increase is making up for the erosion of the home loan market?

I'm going to stick with 2 questions at a time.

I'm sorry, this is part of the first question. I have a second question. Can I ask that now? I mean if it's related, why should that be classified as a second question? The second question is a more important question.

I will allow that, but I will be sticking to two that because of my misunderstanding, please proceed.

Okay. Last year, [ AFI ] reported that CBA had reduced its use of consultants. Are you still using those consultants? How many? And given the findings of the full measures and the flaws that were revealed, are you continuing -- well, are you reconsidering your use of consultants?

I could use a very specific example from yesterday, where we brought in some experts to actually have a deep dive on some aspects of artificial intelligence. So the bank will continue to rely on its internal resources as much as possible. But we do learn and can better understand how to support customers when we go to external experts from time to time. So there are times when we're actually using -- whether we call them consultants or experts absolutely. But we are focused on our cost base, and we are making decisions to mitigate costs wherever we can to the extent it's not in support of productivity efficiency of our customer base. I think that's probably the best way to answer that question. I think that we might stop there because you definitely have 2 questions there. So we might move now to microphone #2, please.

Chair, I would like to introduce [indiscernible].

Yes, it's interesting that you have decided not to invest in oil or gas, any new oil or gas production. There's currently a proposition to -- for very large wind farms of the New South Wales Coast, which had met a lot of opposition is in the very early stages. And ironically, by people who would normally advocate for renewable energies. But in addition, the even if it all happens, it have been sold, it will take 8 to 10 years. There's quite a high demand for oil and gas, probably will be for quite a long time. I'm just -- sorry, -- so I suppose my question is, is oil and gas become too high a risk for you? Or is it -- are the decisions are purely political?

We have made a commitment to our Paris target of being net 0 by 2050. Transition to net 0 as your question highlights talking about both oil and gas and offshore wind farms is extremely complex. We are guided by the Australian electric market operator that says that there is a path to being net 0 and the electrification of the grid is a very important way of getting there. But it does require a significant investment in new renewables generation, the transmission to support that, but also the firming capacity to make sure that the grid will operate when those renewables aren't operating. The transition from today's mix of oil and gas and coal will occur over time. We have very limited funding exposures to companies in that space anyway. And they've produced dramatically just through the ordinary course of business in many respects. We've been very clear about our transition target. But I think the essence of your question that I'd pull out is the transition is going to be difficult, it's going to be difficult for Australians. It requires significant investment and we identified that we've already provided $45 billion of investment -- of funding, 2 renewables projects out of that $70 billion target. But the actual execution plan will require a lot of focus, and we're very much aware of that. We're highlighting that with investors and government and others because we need to get it right, but we've also got to support customers as they go through that transition. There's no easy answers.

Okay. Yes, I wonder whether it is the bank's role to be an arbitrage in this field. It sounds from your response, it's an either or. I would suggest that it can be both. And a lot of renewables are as I've illustrated today -- and you said it is complicated. So perhaps some more oil and gas is required or will be required before the renewables are either sufficient or constant enough.

They may well be. And as I said, the transition is complex, and we will continue to engage and you've heard from the questions today that there are different perspectives and balancing out those perspectives, we've got to be clear about our focus. We are absolutely focused on supporting and lending to Australia, and we are going to lean into making sure that the transition from our perspective and what we can do is effective as possible, but there are certainly different perspectives on how to go about that. Thank you for your time.

Chair, I would like to introduce Morgan [ Pickett ].

Welcome Morgan.

In Common Bank's latest climate policy update, you said that you will require oil and gas producing metallurgical coal mining and coal-fired power generation clients to have published transition plans by 2025, in order to receive corporate or trade finance or bond facilitation. What was the rationale for acquiring these companies from the beginning of 2025? And do you believe that this gives our clients ample time to develop these transition plans?

There's already -- the question on transition plans is really important. We've already got significant engagement with all of our customers, our significant customers in this space around transition plans. And in our climate report, we talked about the engagement over time and how many have got transition plans where the conversation is up to with each company and also an acknowledgment that by talking with us, some customers are getting a better idea of what a transition plan needs to look like. So in terms of perspective, as I mentioned earlier, 2025 is not very far away. So there is a lot of work to do. We're investing in expertise within our teams to understand how that might work across different industries, and in our climate reports, we've put transition paths for major sectors of the economy. And this year, we put some of the heavy industries in there, but also Australian housing. And if I talk about -- to be frank, what will be very complex is the electrification of the grid is an essential way of reducing emissions in housing. But how over time we support our customers to reduce their own emissions? We had lower cost green loans to put solar and other renewables investments in the individual homes, but the housing stock will take a long time to move. And from CBA's perspective, it's our more each customers to provide the biggest exposure in the area that we've really got to help understand and engage with customers to address meeting our net 0 targets by 2050. So transition plans for heavy industry, lots of really good engagement, but a lot of work to do, particularly in homeownership and the houses in Australia.

So yes, ample time to develop these transition plans?

Well, there's a lot of work to do. And just to comment, we've loaned $4 billion already into the renewables space and $45 billion in the sustainability funding just to get the language right there. So thank you very much for your questions.

Also relating to transition plans, a notable gap is that in that list is thermal coal mining companies. While you've committed to external thermal coal completely by 2030, your policy doesn't require companies in this sector to have well below 2 degrees of warming a line transition plans in place by 2025 to keep receiving finance. That's 6 more years for Common Bank to potentially continue finance thermal coal companies, misaligned with global climate goals. One of your thermal coal mining clients, Glencore is between expanded thermal and metallurgical coal completely incompatible with the world's climate goals with some operating until 2050. Will you set the same transition plan requirements for thermal coal mining companies that you have for the other fossil fuel companies to receive finance from 2025?

So I won't be speaking to individual companies but there are 2 limbs to our focus, subject to a secure energy future in Australia. We will not be financing food project finance, oil and gas extraction, but moving to our transition parts for our major customers. And we stated last year transition parts for a number of industries, including thermal coal that we will work within and engage with customers in that space to ensure that by 2025, they have Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions, transition plans that are Paris aligned. We think within those 2 broad policy perspective, we will be able to address the questions that you're asking today.

So you do expect that thermal coal mining will be able to receive that finance from 2025?

We have, as I mentioned, I'm going to answer it from the way the policy works. We have transition plans that require Scope 1 and 2 and 3, they need to address that 1 to 2 and 3 emissions, and that those transition plans need to be in place by 2025, and they need to be independently assessed. So I think that kind of covers the construct of a range of industries, but specifically thermal coal was set out in our Climate Report in that context last year.

I mean you're correct in the way you put the question to us and so far as the exit of thermal coal by 2030 and therefore, is not included in the transition plans, just to be clear.

Chair, I would like to introduce [ Morgan Pickett ].

My question is in Common Bank's latest climate policy update, you fail to move the dial on your position on new and expanded metallurgical coal mines. As it stands, your commitment is only to assess new or expanded metallurgical coal mines for alignment with the goals of the Paris Agreement. The International Energy Agency has made it clear in 3 successive iterations of its net 0 by 2050 scenario that no new coal mines or mine extensions are compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. This is inclusive of both thermal and metallurgical coal. The steel industry is accelerating its transition away from metallurgical coal much more rapidly than has been expected. Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the IEA has said the project pipeline for producing steel with hydrogen rather than coal is expanding rapidly. It currently announced projects come to fruition, we could already have more than half of what we need in 2030 for the IEA net-zero pathway. BlueScope Steel Chief Executive, Mark Vassella, also stated last month that the steel technology transition was moving much faster than expected. Does Common Bank agree that new and expanded metallurgical coal mines could delay this transition by locking in capital to coal-based steel production as opposed to financing the rapidly accelerating clean alternatives?

Again, without talking to specific companies. There's not yet at scale, a commercially viable alternative to metallurgical coal is steelmaking and steel is a critical material for things like wind farms transmission line structures. Getting the balance right between maintaining the steel production necessary to support that transition and the metallurgical coal necessary to support that is really important. There are few companies in the world that have electric arc furnaces that melt scrap using natural gas. One day, that might actually move to hydrogen and hydrogen might also 1 day support glass furnaces. Coming to your point, though, about metallurgical coal, that will fit within our framework. We had reasonably low exposures to that at the moment. But within our climate policy, we feel that over the next 2 years, we'll be able to articulate much more clearly that -- well, actually, we've already clearly articulated that we have a net 0 by 2050 exposure that we have transitioned parts for major companies, including in the spaces to which you've referred that they have to be independently assessed by 2025. And without getting into the specific individual companies, I think we've got the right framework to ensure that we can meet our commitments. But I'm also going to make sure that I've actually got the answer specifically correct.

Chair, I would like to introduce [ Mary Ancich ].

Just want to make a bit of a comment. And first, I'll probably tell you I'm only going to ask 1 question. I will have a bit of a comment before.

Thank you very much.

And actually, listening to your address of the Chairman's address, half of that was actually given over where I thought you were a politician. But be that as it may, it's just a point to me, I must admit when companies have any kind tend to get into politics. And particularly, it surprises me and disappoints me that a bank when you're looking at particular issues, whether it is the climate, whether it is reconciliation, appear to be opting for both the most expensive and the riskiest option. But these items that may, that's just my comment. I'm concerned you said that the Board did have long discussions about giving money to the Yes campaign for the referendum. I think anybody that voted for that should not be those back in. I'd encourage everybody to not vote for any Board members that vote for that. So my question to you is, when it went to the Board was the decision unanimous or did anybody vote against it and if you can, who voted against this?

Thank you very much for your question, Mary. From a policy that CBA and the Board and management will focus on policy matters all of the time. We have to support the right policies that make for a strong banking system that enable us to support our customers to have the right balance sheet to be able to compete effectively in deposits and mortgages and source funding from overseas. I won't go into the specifics of who votes in the Board. As a Board, we make decisions and those decisions are actually communicated. And again, we have had a long-standing commitment to supporting First Nations people through listening to them, going back to our first reconciliation Action Plan in 2008 through to our seventh reconciliation Action Plan in 2023. We have invested a lot of money over time to support scholarships, training and development and to make sure that we have a respectful workplace and an empowered workplace. And to be frank I for 1 and proud of the work that the Common Wealth Bank has undertaken in that space. So I've spoken about the voice, we see it as a policy issue for which we have focused on for a long period of time. It is clearly an issue that all of Australia has been asked to focus on at the moment. And we are incredibly respectful of the different views. But we will continue to focus on the steps in our reconciliation plan next week, the week after and for the years to come. And we will invest in that space because we think it's the right thing for shareholders because it helps us attract and retain the best people. It helps us develop our people. It helps us engage with our communities and support them, which flows into having the right products and services for our customers, which ever culture, indigenating, geographic location or business activity that they may have, but we will be inclusive of everyone and we will stick to that focus and we will stick to that focus consistently over time.

But there are different ways of getting to reconciliation, I believe, you've chosen the most expensive and the riskiest. Thank you.

Chair, I would like to introduce Craig.

Welcome Craig.

Hello, Chairman and to the Board, and I reiterate [indiscernible] Comments that we're very appreciative that you did meet with us last year, thank you. I did want to follow up on some comments regarding PwC that you've mentioned and Mrs. Mazalevskis just mentioned. PwC sold confidential government information, whilst they were under a confidentiality contract. To the very international companies, the proposed tax legislation was designed to address. In doing this, PwC sold out every Australian. Our Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, rightly slammed the tax leak as a shocking breach of trust. You say Mr. O'Malley that you're assured of PwC's new found genuineness after talking to the new CEO. It was the previous CEO, Tom Seymour, who initially misled us all when he said all those involved in this inception were fired. He concealed his own involvement at that time. Later, his role unraveled and he left along with others. The tax practitioners Board also failed. ASIC regularly fails. It was actually journalists like [ Ted Ross] and Chenoweth from the Financial Review. Senator Barbara Pocock and Senator Barbara O'Neill, they have persistent questioning of parliamentary inquiries. These people exposed in unraveled PwC, not regulators, not the CEO, not PwC, not the industry. So I question your faith in assurances from the industry. I've spoken previously on auditing home loans. Your directors here must take comfort from PwC auditing, the system that lies above each of those loans. The Royal Commission and the APRA governance report revealed the failures of relying upon systems. I asked the Board to instruct PwC if you're going to persist with PwC to granularly interrogate just 100 randomly selected home loans on a detailed forensic basis. Would this very small order be considered diligent and prudent?

Thank you for your question. I think in PwC, what I said was I spoke to the CEO to ensure that they were focused on their improvement program that had been transparently disclosed. I also spoke over a significant period of time with the relevant people at PwC about the governance of their assurance practice, which actually does have independent and has had independent participation over time. And we have seen the highest quality of activity from our PwC audit team. The PwC audit is undertaken with a systematic methodology that does do deep dives on individual aspects of the mortgage book, including looking at files within the mortgage book, that is part of their ongoing process already because they have to do testing to make sure that the systems work that they do is actually relevant for the systematic outcome. So I will confirm after the fact that, that process is undertaken, but that is my understanding in the way in which the audit is already completed.

Would you be prepared to just have 100 home loans to be audited individually?

I do it more than that Mr. Caulfield already. I do substantially more than that from an individual home loan.

Individual granular home loans.

We might go back online for some more questions, and then we will come back to the room.

Chair, I have a question from [ Michael Butler ]. Our current external auditor PwC has been auditing for more than 5 years. Previous CBA boards rotated the external audit approximately every 5 years to enable a different set of eyes to review process and risks within CBA. Why is this current Board not rotating this very important oversight process?

That in fact does happen, as we mentioned, Liz O'Brien, has undertaken the audit for the past 12 months. That is her first 12 months as the auditor of CBA. We have a policy whereby the audit partner is rotated every 5 years, and we evaluate the performance of the auditor regularly at the Board to determine whether we continue with that firm. And with everything that's happened, we have had that conversation, and we'll continue to have that conversation internally, but the auditor has only been the auditor for the past 12 months, and that rotation policy will continue.

Chair, a question from Ritesh with the amazing annual -- I'm sorry, just surprise to start that question, the submission contains a number of questions. How would you like me to proceed?

I'm happy to hear 2 of those questions. Thank you.

With the amazing annual results, CBA this financial year. Are there any plans to offer ESSP at a discounted price to employees? Can there be better discounted interest rates for home loans to employees in comparison to competitors, CBA is still expensive?

I'm guessing the reference to ESSP as Employee Share Scheme. We do offer an employee share scheme each year where we do make a grant of shares to employees as a recognition of their contribution to the bank. And similar to the question that I was asked earlier about shareholder discount, we absolutely will support all of our customers, regardless of whether they're shareholders, employees as best we can and provide additional services in the -- to customers in the form of our yellow program that we're introducing that we won't necessarily be providing targeted support of discounts to individual tranches of customers.

Chair, this question or a series of questions has been asked by a number of shareholders. This one is representative. It's from [ Bridget Heathcote ]. Will there be any more bank closures in the near future and particularly what plans for rural areas? Can you guarantee that at least ATMs will be in easy access to major shopping areas?

Thank you for your question. As this was mentioned earlier, a number of times, we've committed to no closure of our Commonwealth Bank branded branches in regional areas for the next 3 years, and we will engage with our customers and communities in those areas to work out the best sustainable way of maintaining services. We are -- do have the largest branch and ATM presence. And I will take on notice your question as the location of ATMs, and we'll continue to engage with management the best place to have our ATMs.

Chair, this question has been submitted by an anonymous shareholder. Westpac has a dynamic or temporary CVV or CVC and say that this feature has reduced scans and frauds by up to 80% of their customers amongst their other suite of tools. In this period of sharing the best tools to protect our customers from scans and fraud and being inspired by the innovation of our competitors, will CBA consider a dynamic CVV, CVC for our credit card product or an equivalent mechanism to enable us to achieve an equal or better outcome for customers?

So on the specifics of the question, I'll get Matt to comment, but in terms of the question you had before about name ID check or caller ID, we will learn from and share the initiatives that we developed at the bank with other companies in the ecosystem because as I said before, a systemic approach across Australia is the best approach for our customers in Australia, whether you're customers of CBA or customers elsewhere. So we're absolutely not at all reticent to share. But in terms of the specific item in that question.

Thank you. Look, we're certainly aware of that. And as I think we've touched on, we see this as a really important priority for the bank, and we've accordingly prioritize the investments that we've made in this area that we think will make the biggest difference. And so we will continue to do so and we're certainly, as the Chairman touched on, not over to incorporating things that other people are doing if we believe they're going to make a difference.

I might just come back to a question that was asked earlier about the Commonwealth Bank's involvement in politics. We focus on policy and I just want to reiterate, we focus on policy from time to time, issues become much more in the public domain. But as I said in the wrap from 2008 to 2023 and beyond, we will focus on the policies that we think are important and that's the conversation that we had at the Board. Helen will go back to you.

Chair, question has come in from a number of shareholders on this topic -- sorry, several questions. This one is representative. It's from [ Natasha Lee ], while the female representation on the Board is good, other forms of diversity seem to be lacking or ignored. Would the Board commit to achieving a more representative board makeup so that it better reflects the community in general?

Natasha, thank you very much for your question, and it's in line to the question we had earlier about the Board metrics. We're absolutely focused on gender diversity. Our cultural diversity changes from time to time, but also the diversity of thinking, the diversity of skills, the diversity of experience. We believe, as I think is implied by your question that the more diversity, the better a Board will come at issues from different perspectives, challenge each other and really end up with better engagement and better outcomes, and that's absolutely an area of renewal that the Board continues to focus on and will continue to evolve. So I absolutely support the sentiment of the question and say that's an area that we will continue to keep working.

Chair a number of questions similar to this one have been submitted by shareholders, the following is representative, and it's from [ Maxi Cob Proprietary Limited ]. Why does the bank wait such a long time after announcing the dividend to make the payment in the latest case, it's 50 days? Can it be paid sooner?

Thank you for your question. I think there's broad support in the room for that sentiment. There are a variety of stock exchange and other requirements. We have a very large shareholder base that's distributed far and wide, both in Australia and outside Australia. We have a dividend reinvestment plan that needs to be processed and taking into account the share logistics of making sure that we have the right records of our shareholders, their locations, their accounts and the money to be paid that we absolutely want to get that right. And the time frame is consistent from year-to-year, both for the half and the full year dividend. So I'll take the question on reflection in terms of can we speed things up, but there is so much work involved. I think it's much more important that we get it right in the most considered and accurate manner possible.

Chair. This question from [ David Brice ]. The Royal Commission into Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services saw all major banks in Australia ditch their vertical integration model for providing financial services, et cetera. Does CBA have any incline to rejuvenate that model in regards to looking for acquisitions? If not, what does CBA look out for in terms of making acquisitions these days? Or is most spend on such things aside of security, et cetera?

We have a strategy that really requires us to continue to focus on our foundations to reimagine the products and services that we can provide to customers as well as supporting customers and employees. We're always considering how to expand our product and service footprint for the benefit of the customers, how much do we invest in those areas. We have our X15 platform, which is looking at new ways of engaging with customers and new products, such as unloan and Home-in. In terms of large-scale acquisitions, we would look at those on their merits, but we see a lot of opportunity to invest in our core franchise, grow our core franchise and engage with our customers more effectively, and that's where the weight of activity sits at the moment.

Chair, a question from [ Paul Worthington ]. The bank is outsourcing lots of jobs to India and slowly reducing jobs in Australia. How does that impact Australian shareholders and general Australians?

I think that question was asked earlier as well. So to answer it again, we have a very substantial workforce in Australia. We have a dynamically changing competitive environment. We have to continually adjust the skills we need to support both the implement of our strategy and our operations. And predominantly, our workforce is in Australia. But as I mentioned, from time to time, we need to invest in broader capability that we can source in Australia, and we are doing that to an extent in India, where we have our own subsidiary. And in India, we are bringing people from outside that used to provide consulting services to us and in-sourcing those into a Commonwealth Bank entity. But Australia is our primary footprint. We have a major operation in New Zealand, and we have a lot of employees in New Zealand as well. So I think I've answered that question, but we can't do anything without the quality and the capable people that we have within our business, and we'll continue to empower and support them.

Chair, a number of questions similar to this one have been submitted by shareholders online. This one is representative. It's from [ Michael Minto ]. When will CBA rule out all funding of fossil fuel producers?

I think we've already talked at length about our latest DNS framework. So I might just take the comments I previously said is the answer to that question.

Chair, this is a question from shareholder, [ Larry Benett ]. What is the time frame in days that is the bank's objective in responding to customers and getting the bank to provide copies of applications, models and copies of recorded calls that relate to customer complaints?

Our response to customer complaints is to try and address them as instantaneously as possible. And then where there's complication to revert again as quickly as possible the independent customer complaints authority looks at metrics for us about instantaneous response within 5 days and then more challenging responses. In terms of the specifics of providing more detail on call, information, Matt?

Within 10 days.

Chair, I have to -- I do have one further question from [ Larry Benett ]. Having heard your explanation of the required skills of senior management, do senior management and the Board actually use the various parts of the bank online system? If the answer is yes, then why they're so many clunky and poorly designed functions that customers have to deal with? I think the above management should have direct accountability for the quality of the bank's online systems, their employment and remuneration should reflect that.

I think one comment on our app is it's consistently ranked as the best online banking app in Australia and presents very well globally. So there will always be credit business. We've recently relaunched the next generation of that app. The management team spends an inordinate amount of time of testing, listening to customer feedback and they'll be locking that piece of feedback at the moment as well but it is a good app. It does very well. The challenge from the Board and management for everyone involved is to continue to do a better job. That continuous improvement is absolutely critical to the way we approach that activity and so many others within the bank. So at that point, I think we'll move back to the room and microphone #6.

Chair, I would like to introduce Mr. [ David Hutchinson ].

Welcome [ Mr. Hutchinson ]

Just with respect to encouragement, what people vote for the voice by $2 million and if you think this in the best interest of the bank to get $2 million to the voice, what was in the best interest of the bank, to get $2 million to the liberal labor or for the greens got a bit, would this also be appropriate?

So I'm not quite sure I fully understood the question. If you could just please restate it.

Is there any difference from giving $2 million to the voice or political parties?

As I mentioned, we said this as an absolutely long-term commitment to a policy of recognition and supporting our First Nations employee and customers to be more relevant for them. And we will continue to support that focus into the future. We see it as a policy item, not as a political item from a CBA perspective. And we acknowledge, as I said before, there are different perspectives on how that is considered, and we very much respect that. We might move to microphone #5.

Chair, I would like to introduce [ Kyle Robertson].

Hello again, Mr. Chairman. Apologies for that. I have a quick clarify question for Mr. Comyn in response to your response to my colleague's question about thermal coal before. My understanding of your response was that thermal coal mining companies will not be required to have transition plans from 2025. Now my question is, why is this requirement for other fossil fuel companies and not for thermal coal companies, which is the most polluting of fossil fuels?

Matt, I'll hand that one back to you.

Happy to. And look, while I've got the Mark, can I just thank you [ Mr. Robertson ] for the constructive engagement we've had with market forces this year, it's been appreciated. As you know, we announced the policy to reduce our exposure to thermal coal by 2030 to 0. As you can see set out in the climate report, our exposures have reduced substantially over that time. I think with consideration to both of those factors, we didn't think that it was necessary to implement a transition plan arrangement with those customers given the very, very small exposures and the reduction to 0 that is planned.

I would just -- before I go like to reiterate that we think it is very important, who those customers are, what those plans are. And we thought the transition policy was good in that it would take account for the trajectories those companies are on, and we very much support implementing the same policy for thermal coal mining companies. But thank you, Mr. Comyn.

Noted. We look forward to working with you in the future as well.

Thank you very much, Kyle. And just to reiterate Matt's comments, thank you very much for the very constructive engagement. We're going to do one more question on this order of business and then move on to the next order of business, but we're still open for questions. So microphone #4.

Chair, I would like to introduce to [indiscernible].

Mr. Chairman, my question -- I've got 2 questions. First of all, in relation to home loans. This is an extension of Mr. Kazim's question as well. Basically, I note that net interest margin, group NIM increased due to the rising interest rates environment, partly offset by the intense on competition for home loans. Now I read in the article that CommBank had the cash-back payment removal. Basically, is there a relationship between that and the increase in loan impairment and also with the cash back and also noted that with CommSec unrelated, but still with CommSec you reduced your [ fees ] because there was intensifying competition as well. Would a CBA bring back cash back payment removal - could CBA bring back cash back removal-- I mean would CBA bring back cash back payment if it does help maintain your what Mr. Kazim said your home loan base? Or -- and is that cash back payment remove a short or long-term play?

Thank you very much for your question. And Matt did talk about the intense competition you might want to add to my comments. But we acknowledge that the net interest margin expanded through to about October of last year, but it's been on a decline since then because of the significant competition on deposits. We had a cash-back offer in the market for a period of time, but we've renewed well after the NIMs were declining, but we still continue to see intense competition but just to elaborate on that, Matt?

No, thank you. And of course, we specifically to your -- maybe the 3 parts to that question. One, on the cashback as being covered, we announced that we would no longer be offering those cash back, a number of other financial institutions followed that. I know that that's been extensively welcomed across the mortgage broker community because they felt for some time that cash back actually distort the market and caused borrowers to switch to different financial institutions, which may not be in their longer-term interest. There is no connection between the cash back. So cash back is effectively provided to the customers a cost to the bank and to shareholders, which has been amortized over multiple years. There's no connection between that and loan impairment or arrears, which is the number of -- or proportion of borrowers who are behind on their repayments. And then the third part, I think you raised was, yes, we've made changes to part of our competitive strategy to make sure that we're very competitive with our most active traders in that business.

And also my second question in extension to Mrs. Caulfield about name check, basically is name check of priorty technology of CBA. And if so, will you launch other communication? Or how would that work?

It is technology that we developed internally. So from that perspective, it is proprietary, and we've offered it for free. So we haven't sought to strike a licensing arrangement. We think that if there's opportunities to make access available across the broader ecosystem than that should be done, and it will help to protect just our customers, but the broader community and country.

Thank you very much. I'm now going to move to the next item on the agenda, Rob Whitfield and Simon Moutter. The resolutions will be dealt with separately. The Board considers that both dependent, each director standing for reelection will briefly address the meeting regarding their candidacy. Item 2 is for the reelection of Rob Whitfield, who in accordance hires as a director and offers himself for reelection. Rob has been a member of the Board since fourth of September 2017. He is the Chair of the Risk and Compliance Committee and the Nominations Committee. The Board, with Robert Stein, as a director. I now invite Rob to address the meeting.

Thanks, Paul. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, as Paul mentioned, my election to the CBA Board was announced on the fourth of September 2017 and 2020, a member of the Audit Committee. Today, I'm seeking as a member of the CBA Board, I'm an experienced ASX-listed experience in banking, private and the public sector in Compliance Committee, helped us navigate to play an active role supporting and it is an important contribution, achieve our purpose, my experience and diligent commitment to CBA continues to equip me well to contribute to our future growth and success. I'd like to put on the record that I fully support the Board's decision regarding the voice. I look forward to continuing to serve you and as Chair of the Risk and Compliance Committee should do decide. Thank you.

Thank you, Rob. I now invite shareholders and proxy holders in the room to make comments on Item 2A. I also invite shareholders and proxy holders to submit questions online. Are there any questions online?

Chair, a question from Stephen Mayne. I was hoping to vote for Rob Whitfield online now after listening to his reelection speech. But you banned online voting this year similar to what you did last year, when live online questions were also banned. Why not just fully embrace the hybrid AGM model rather than being like recalcitrant billionares, Gerry Harvey and Kerry Stokes, who banned full online participation at their AGMs. No other company adopts our 2023 AGM model, offering live online questions, but no live online voting. Why did we do this?

As I said, we've modified our processes in submitting questions online. And we think the balance that we are offering is the appropriate balance for CBA.

No further questions have been submitted on this item.

Thank you, Helen. And as there are no further questions in the room, we'll move on to the next item of business. Details of the direct and proxy votes received prior to the meeting in relation to this resolution are displayed on the screen relation to Item 2A, Rob Whitfield reelection. I will now move to item 2B. Item 2B for the reelection of Simon Moutter, who in accordance with the bank's constitution, retires as a director and offers himself as a member of the board since the 1st of September 2020. He is Chair of the People and Remuneration Committee and the member of the Risk and Compliance Committee. The Board, with Simon abstaining recommends the reelection of Simon Moutter as a Director to address the meeting.

Thank you, Paul, and [ Kora], ladies and gentlemen. I served on the CBA Board of Directors for 3 years now and feel privileged to be involved in an organization which makes such an important contribution to the long-term prosperity of both Australia and New Zealand. It's been a career highlight of mine committed to building a better bank and striving every day to do a great job for our company's shareholders. I previously held senior executive and Board roles in several large organizations in New Zealand, including Spark New Zealand, Auckland International. My professional career has provided considerable insight into evolving information, market strategy and new ways of working. And at CBA, I still board discussion in these areas, supporting the bank's continuous focus experience. My role as Chair of the People and Remuneration Committee in August last year, and I'm also a member. I lean on my experience transformational change and helping manage to encourage the Board and management team to be aspirational in setting goals and operationally excellent in delivering against them. And my 3 years at CBA has provided me with a sound understanding of our customers' needs and how we can continue to build a bank that remains relevant in a fast-changing world and continues to be part of the trusted fabric of Australian and New Zealand society. And can I also fully support for the Board's position on the voice. With your support from my reelection, I look forward to continuing to serve you. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Simon. I now invite shareholders and proxy holders in the room to make comments on this item. I also invite shareholders and proxy. Are there any questions? Helen, Mark, see if there are any questions online.

A question from Stephen Mayne. In 2019, Treasury Wine Estate voluntarily moved to annual elections for directors in line with best practice in both the United States and the U.K. Dual-listed companies like News Corp and Rio Tinto do these - due to the laws in the U.S. and U.K. and BHP has continued doing it even after its U.K. DLC ended in 2021. Can the Chair and the candidates for reelection today comment on whether our company will follow this TWE lead, Treasury Wine Estates lead and move to annual elections of directors at the 2024 AGM. CSL's Chair said at its AGM today that it seriously looked at this issue.

Thank you very much for the question. We will also consider it. At the moment, though, we intend to continue with the form of 3 years and we'll advise you at some point. We'll advise all of you if that is to change.

The second question from Stephen Mayne. At this year's Macquarie Group AGM, there were 44 PowerPoint slides lodged with the ASX to accompany the formal addresses. We only managed 4 pages of text from the chair and 3 from the CEO with no slides, graphs or images. In 2024, why not at least include a few PowerPoint slides and why not disclose the proxy position to the ASX with the formal addresses to offer more timely disclosure to the market. The likes of Origin, Myer, Brambles, Carsales, J.B. HiFi, NAB, Zero and SEC do this. What does Simon Moutter think on this?

Thanks very much for your question. We will consider all of the feedback we get in ways of doing things differently. And I think that's what we will do. We do look to practice within the Australian market and we'll continue to consider the feedback that we get from shareholders, and I'll commit to doing that.

Chair, no further questions have been submitted on this item at this time.

Thank you. And if there are no further questions in the room, I now put the resolution to the meeting. Details of the direct and proxy votes received prior to the meeting in relation to this resolution are displayed on the screen, basing to Item 2B, Simon Moutter's reelection. The next item on agenda Item 3 is the resolution to adopt the bank's room ended 30 June 2023. In a corporation -- in accordance with the Corporations Act, the vote on this resolution is revised. Report is included in the bank's 2023 annual report, which is available on our website and today. This is the first year Simon Moutter is -- served as Chair of the People and Remuneration Committee. The committee will continue to focus on the priorities that ensure our people and remuneration strategy, support the group's strategic priorities and cultural ambitions and our future fit in compliance with all applicable regulatory requirements. The group and the executive leadership team has delivered strong performance in the 2023 financial year against the big backdrop of economic uncertainty including rapidly changing macroeconomic factors, in particular, central bank interest rate increases and inflation. Our executive remuneration framework fixed remuneration, short-term variable remuneration or STVR, long-term alignment remuneration. Together, these elements are designed to provide market competitive remuneration rewarding sustainable financial and nonfinancial performance and shareholder value creation over the longer term. Executive STVR outcomes are determined across a balanced scorecard of critical areas, being shareholder, customer, people and leadership and strategy with reputation and values. Our financial performance have strong financial management and operational execution. The board exercised discretion to increase financial targets during the year, taking into account at the start of the year when targets were actually set. Our performance in the areas of customer, people and leadership and strategy have been similarly strong. Our reputation score was highest among peers and our nonfinancial performance supports alignment with shareholders' interests including environmental and social outcomes incorporated into our strategic priorities. The Board continues to prioritize our environmental and social obligations as they are critical to our overarching strategy, executive performance scorecards and risk milestones. The Board considered these outcomes alongside the contribution from each member of the executive leadership team in determining this year's executive remuneration outcomes. I now invite shareholders and proxy holders in the room to a microphone to ask any questions or make comments on this item. I also invite shareholders and proxy holders to submit questions online. There will be questions, but I do want to go back to that last question that Mr. Mayne asked. One of the reasons that we don't have a lot of documents is so that we can engage directly in questions with our shareholders. At least hundreds of pages of slides and documents that have very specific information on the bank, and I would direct any shareholders who want to look in particular at the investor material there. But from a policy perspective, and I was a bit slow in saying that, it is all about engagement with you, our shareholders. Our materials are engaged in a dialogue. And at that point, I will go to microphone #1.

Chair, I would like to introduce Dr. Lewis Gomes.

Dr. Gomes, welcome back.

Thanks, again, Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the Australian Shareholders' Association. Firstly, let me say we're supportive of the -- we've commented to you in the past, the way the bank sets out its remuneration policies, its metrics, the numbers that come out of that is well set out, and it makes it very easy for our members to understand what's going on. A number of our members have questioned the take-home remuneration of the CEO, which we all acknowledge is high this year. But we also understand the reasons for that being the best in past awards and to all of our benefits, the increase in share price, which is obviously reflected in the value of the remuneration of the CEO and others. We do have a question in relation to the long-term alignment remuneration, which was introduced and retain executives via a number of financial and nonfinancial considerations that were not subject to the usual metrics associated with long-term awards. The expectation was that executives would receive those awards in full after 4 years, subject to Board discretion around individual performance. Can we ask how rigorous is the Board's evaluation of the LTAR when exercising discretion?

Thank you, Dr. Gomes. The first point I'd make for clarification is that the long-term alignment rights have a service period of 4 years, but then they have a withhold period of some substantial number of years after that. So there is a period of time where they may have vested, but the executive cannot access them. But during that period of time, they do get dividends. In relation to the LTAR process, why do we have long-term alignment rights? Post the Royal Commission with the focus on the structure of compensation and the inclusion of the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority in determining -- in having governance under CPS 511 over remuneration, there are rules put in place around the structure of that remuneration. And in terms of long-term remuneration and short-term incentive, there has to be a mix of both financial and nonfinancial award. So in terms of the long-term remuneration, there are 2 components. There's the long-term variable reward, which is a total shareholder return-based metric. And that is considered to be the financial component of that long-term award. The long-term alignment rights, which effectively has to be shares that each executive to receive them, are grant in the first place but to receive them end of 4 years, is assessed on their strategic and leadership performance over the prior 3 years and their values and behaviors that they undertake in undertaking their role and risk assessment in terms of any risk of a material nature that occur on their watch. So there is a very substantive process that the entire board goes through to determine whether to grant those alignment rights. And then whether to vest those alignment rights. And then there is a holding period post that. So that's considered under the CPS511 framework to be the nonfinancial component. But in designing that award, we wanted the award to be equity-based such that if the share price increased and shareholders benefited, that was actually also to the benefit of management. If the share price went down and shareholders suffered from that, then management's compensation would also go down. So that's the nature of the LTAR and it's a rigorous granting and assessment process. But I'd also just reiterate one of the comments you made in terms of Matt's earned compensation this year. The long-term compensation that Matt got this year was granted over 4 years ago, and it was the first time that he was given long-term award as the CEO. And in that 4-year period, you, our shareholders have benefited by the share price going from about $72 to around $100 for a 59% total shareholder award in that term. So Matt's to be complimented on the role that he and his entire team have undertaken to turn the bank around over the last 4 years. And our shareholders -- all shareholders have benefited from that. So just acknowledge that comment as well. We have a question at microphone #6.

Paul Blackmore from the Finance Sector Union again. Earlier this year as part of a federal court proceeding initiated by the Fair Work Ombudsman, the CBA made a number of admissions relating to the underpayment of more than $16 million to 7,436 workers through the misuses individual agreements. The case is referred to Page 192 of the annual report. In the proceedings, CBA admitted that it engaged in a systematic partners conduct that led to these underpayments and is yet to know the financial penalty it must pay for its actions. CBA also admitted that senior members of CBA's Group HR, knew of the wage steps and either disregarded them or were indifferent to the risks that employees may have been underpaid. The finance sector unit had raised concerns about CBA's use of individual employment agreements on many occasions over the years, but these were dismissed. If CBA had engaged with its workforce and the FSU as the representative, the issue and the penalty may have been avoided. I've got 2 questions. What actions are you taking to ensure that damaging conduct like this never happens again at CBA by holding those who were reckless in discharging their responsibilities and those had oversaw this conduct to account and given this admission of underpayment, how can we support this?

Thank you, Paul, for your questions. So firstly, just to acknowledge, it's unacceptable that some of our people were not paid the correct entitlement. There's no -- there's nothing we can do other than acknowledge that. This should apologize around people impacted. The issues before were before the quarter in September, and they were self-reported in our debt investment in 2018. Since then, we've undertaken a comprehensive review and remediated all of the underpayment, including interest in superannuation, as you would expect us to do. The review was completed last year and the Fair Work Ombudsman has confirmed that no further compensation payment. The court will determine the penalty, and it wouldn't be appropriate for us to comment on that further. In relation to your issue about accountability, we take our role of accountability identifying systematic or internal issues very seriously. That is considered both through the People and Remuneration Committee and the Concurrent Committee. And we looked to the risk filings, and we've demonstrated over the last number of years that we do that very diligently. And you've only got to look back through the remuneration report where decisions have been made to adjust compensation because of risk failures or governance failures. We have a question at Item #3.

Chair, I would like to introduce Craig.

Welcome back, Mr. Corfield.

Thank you very much. Turning to Page 32 of our annual report, it's headed creating better end -- sorry, better end-to-end customer experiences. Quoted on many other pages with much puffery is CBA's is proud standing as the leading bank on Net Promoter Score. I'm disappointed after raising the [ furphy ] and the failures underlying Net Promoter Score at last year's AGM, that it is still used as your key to measuring your understanding of customers. Net Promoter Score is outdated and simplistic, and CBA continues to be misleading and deceptive in the way Net Promoter Score is published in this artificial light. Very serious complaints might only represent 1% of your customer base. And let me acknowledge CBA is doing many things right and many things positive and has got many happy customers. But it is the tail and complainants that have a disproportionate influence on bringing on things like the Royal Commission and regulatory inquiries. Far more accurate and informative data can be obtained from a series of other nonfinancial metrics. Complaints, internal dispute resolution, customer advocate, complaints to ASCA, other external dispute resolution methods, mediation, court cases, scans registered, scan dollar sales, scan dollars lost, SpeakUp, whistleblowers. Your glowing annual reporting on Net Promoter Score does not reflect the record increases in complaints to ASCA. CBA's Net Promoter Score is 4 out of 100, 4 out of 100. Bendigo Bank rates 20, Perpetual above 30, Nike has a Net Promoter Score of 48, Apple 61, and I received a newsletter 2 days ago, [ Anoka Tiny Home ] company claiming the Net Promoter Score is 80. Set against these companies, CBA has failed customer advocacy. Saying you are the best of a bad bunch is inefficient and unfair to include in rem considerations for Mr. Comyn. And I know there's other things that are included in considerations, but you do say it's your key point for customers. For this reason, I will be voting against Mr. Comyn's rem package despite knowing how many good things Mr. Comyn is doing through the bank over the years. Please stop referring to data science and hiring hundreds of engineers, while you lazily built the [indiscernible] on such failed metrics as Net Promoter Score. My question, why has the failings and distortions of Net Promoter Score escape the Rem Committee?

Thank you for your question, Mr. Corfield. You raised a whole lot of more detailed metrics that you recommend that we look at. I don't think there was a one that we don't actually apply ourselves to in detail in considering the performance of the bank, both systematically, systemically and ad hoc is actually very diligent because that really highlights to us where we are not doing things well. Our Net Promoter Score actually goes up. So the Net Promoter Score is an outcome, but our aim is to improve our NPS over time. We have an aspirational target of getting to an NPS plus 30, which were a large-scale institutional sized bank like CBA would be unheard of almost anywhere in the world. So NPS is a really good to the company to rally around just focusing on NPS. We get there by looking at the moments that matter with our customers with the clarity and quality of our processes and with solving problems as quickly as we possibly can, and sometimes by learning from the mistakes we make, whether it comes from internal identification or from regulators. So that entire ecosystem of items you discussed, are absolutely relevant to how we operate in the detail, but it's really important that we have a beacon that we can rally our staff around that they can use the should we test on and we can see whether we're making relative progress or not. And in that context, NPS is, in fact, very effective.

Well, your annual report when I read it, my shackles go up when I read NPS so many times. And all of the other things, I accept that you do discuss all those other measures. I accept that they're part of the conversation. But you described it in the annual report as your key -- your word, key measure. I'm just knowing how the long-standing complaints can bring upon the Royal Commission. That's not 100 customers. That's 1 in 100 that bring that on. And so if you're a director and you're considering risk inside, it's -- the Net Promoter Score is a 30 in looking at the long-standing and plan. It has such great gravity. As I said last year, Net Promoter Score is putting one foot in a bucket of icy cold water and the other foot in seeming hot coals and it's -- we really need to look at these extremities in more detail. But it's what I read in the annual report, I think the metrics -- the other metrics that you do look at, accept that need to be detailed in the annual report a page of them. Because when I look at how Mr. Comyn's rem is calculated, that's not clear to me. It's quite opaque, but I expect that you're saying that you look at all those other things.

Thanks, Mr. [ Caulfield]. I would -- I'll just elaborate to say that we have a meeting twice a year called the concurrent meeting. And it's a meeting where it's chaired by the Chair of the People and Remuneration Committee, but the PRC, the Audit Committee and the Risk Committee come together to look at all of the details on the aspects that we've just been discussing, to determine what systematic or systemic issues of risk or operations aren't appropriately addressed. And that conversation then goes to input in terms of where we sit on the nonfinancial metrics in the STVR. It's a very rigorous process and it involves bringing in a whole lot of metrics. So I would not necessarily agree with your categorization as NPS, but I'll absolutely take on board the provision of additional detail that actually helps to understand what we think we need to do to move NPS. And if we move NPS, we will be a better bank for our customers, and that will be to the benefit of our shareholders. So thank you for your 2 questions there. We might move to online and see if there are any questions online.

Chair, a question from Stephen Mayne online. Retail shareholder voting turnout at AGMs has fallen to less than 5%. What is the point of voting? Therefore, when disclosing the outcome of voting on all resolutions today, including this rem report, could you please advise the ASX how many shareholders voted for and against each item similar to what happened for the scheme of arrangement? This will provide a better gauge of retail shareholder sentiment and was the disclosure initiative adopted by the likes of Metcash, Dexus, Webjet, Tabcorp and Myer over the past 2 years.

Mr. Mayne, thank you for your question. I'm going to take that one on advisement. But with all of your questions today, we will reflect on our processes. We may change things, we may not, but I really appreciate your challenge. Thank you.

Chair. A number of questions similar to this one have been submitted by shareholders online. This one is representative. It's from [ Michael Beggs]. Why are the CEO and Board members' remuneration packages so exorbitant? How can anyone claim to be worth that much money?

We think to ensure that both the leadership team and the Board have the right mix and skills with the appropriate remuneration. The base salary, the STI, the LTI for our CEO and ELT are tested against the market, they have the right structure. And they've the right capability for the financial organization of a scale and scope that we address. And we want to have the best people. And I would say that we have some exceptional people all through CBA, but particularly at the CEO and leadership team level which doesn't mean that it's not the Board's job to challenge, to test. And as the previous questions have identified, make sure that the things that are inside the bank in detail are addressed appropriately. In terms of Board fees, they have not increased for some period of time. I think the committee fees and the Chair fees were adjusted a number of years ago. But we're reluctant to adjust the Board fees very regularly because we note that that's not an expectation of shareholders. But we have people who are here to serve and do a great job. And in the scheme of things are well paid. But getting that balance right is something that we focus on all of the time.

Chair, a number of questions similar to this one have been submitted by shareholders online. This following one is representative. It's from Ann Horton. Will CBA consider taking a leading role on matching senior executive wages to that of workers and customers?

I think it's a really good question. I would just note that we have just recently negotiated a new EBA -- put a new EBA to vote with our employees. I think 27,000 employees voted and there was a 90% support for a 13% increase in compensation over the next 3years. And I believe that the FSU actually supported that vote. So we are absolutely focused on making sure that we pay our people well, and we have an EBA in place now for the next 3 years. The percentage increases to senior management are much less, but the scale of their compensation, I believe, reflects their capability, their capacity and we want to make sure they stay working for the CBA, so we have to pay competitive rates, but we have to hold them to account. And at our rates are market competitive relative to other organizations of similar scale and scope.

Chair, a question online from Rita Mazelsky. Chair, there has been an influx of corporatization of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people through indigenous land user agreements where native title rights are relinquished to relevant states through these agreements. Has the bank's donation towards the YES campaign being influenced by these transactions, which would also significantly enhance executive remuneration and company profits.

I'm not sure that I fully understand the context of the question. But what I would say is that we have a communication channel through our remedial action -- sorry, our reconciliation action plan on our website where First Nations people and indigenous people can contact us if they have concerns about business activities in their area, that are unrelated to the bank that they want to talk to us about or specifically developments in that area that they think the bank might be involved in. So we have an avenue to make sure that we hear from First Nations peoples directly in areas of concern. In terms of the context of your question, I'm not sure that I can put that in the context for CBA. Sorry, Matt just add to that.

Sorry, just if I could add, I think a simple answer to the question you asked is -- well, I got the microphone, if I may. I wanted to just quickly clarify an answer that I gave to an online question earlier. I think it was by Mr. [ Bennett ] was around complaint resolution time frames. I gave an answer of 10 days, and that's what I was answering. I think actually, part of the question was also how long will the bank endeavor to get back with information pertaining to a client, including customer records and recordings that is 30 days. Just to clarify that.

Thanks very much, Matt.

Chair, we would like to know why employees have been given only 3% to 4% hikes, even though the bank has made huge profits and considering the inflation rate is around 5% to 7%, which is making it so difficult for households.

As I mentioned just a few moments ago, the base pay increase between employees in the latest CBA is up to 5.25% and depending on the compensation level, plus the one-off cost of living adjustment for eligible employees of $1,000 over 3 years, it's been 3% in the first year, as I understand it for most of the employees.

Chair, no further questions on this item at this moment.

Thank you. If we go to microphone #4.

Chair, I would like to introduce [ Dudy Jap ].

Thanks for having me Chair, and thanks to the Board for putting up with me.

It's a pleasure.

Basically, this is part of your financial measures. Basically, I can see that there's none that specifically measures loan impairment expense and also increases in net interest income. Basically, I believe that you do measure profits, but with profits you can decrease expenses to increase your profits. But I believe that the impairment does, in a way, help with your customers with their repayment and risk profile and also capital ratio. How come like risk profile or an impairment or net interest income to maintain multiple and increase our earning power is not really measured there that I can see?

Thank you very much. We actually do have a net profit after tax and a profit after capital charge metric, which captures just about all of the things that you talked in there. So the specifics roll up to a broader outcome and all of those items have to be measured to achieve the profit target that we set for management. We might move now to microphone #2.

Chair, I would like to introduce [ Bruce Bennett ].

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for conducting the meeting so well and being so patient with all of the questions today. I heard so far this morning that our share of home loan banking has declined. Is that - that's correct, isn't it?

On the margin for the last 2 months.

And secondly, that our profit has increased by 5% over the last 12 months. That's also correct.

Yes, different time frames.

Yes. Now my point is that inflation is running about 5%, and we're not doing so well on the loan, the home loan book. What -- in terms of the remuneration, what's the executives plan to address these 2 issues?

I think that's a very good question, and I'm going to ask Matt to respond to it.

Very happy to. Look, I hit the -- you're right it was 5% increase in cash net profit after tax for the last financial year. When we're talking about the home loan share, so that's just a volume, that's not revenue or profit. That has reduced, but we are maintaining our share of revenue over that period of time. And of course, we're very conscious of the profitability and of course, how that will be born to shareholders, but we have to balance that in the context of making sure that we're competitive for our customers. And then just linking to some of the other factors, you could see how a number of these actually play through. So we are very happy that the employment, the enterprise agreement that we put forward to our employees, 90% of our employees that are in favor of that. That's a sliding scale, so 5.25% is the increase to the lowest band. But as you imagine, as you said, inflation flows through, expenses will increase in that environment. We have to manage our overall revenue and profitability, loan impairment expenses, another aspect that we have to take into account both in the near term and over the long term. So there's a constant balance that we're trying to strive to make sure that we're serving our customers and the country as best we can and delivering the most appropriate sustainable shareholder returns.

If you adjust the microphone #2 on, please.

What I'm trying to make is there's eyes on all this expertise and all this money we're spending on management should be able to do better than the increase in cost of inflation. If inflation is 5%, our profit should have gone up by 6% or 7% or 8%, not be the same as inflation. It doesn't require always wonderful technical expertise to just meet -- continue to be as good as inflation.

I think that's a real challenge. Competition is the thing that is very difficult at the moment. So there's intense competition on mortgages and deposits, which is actually bringing the growth in regardless of inflation. We might now move to microphone #1.

Chair, I'd like to introduce Mr. Michael Sanderson.

Welcome back, Mr. Sanderson.

I think made a mistake back there. You said you have a biannual concurrent meeting. Surely, you mean current meeting. Both the mandatory banking code practice in the Australian standard 4269-1995 required a dispute with banks must be free of charge. I acknowledge there may be clauses and contracts that allow banks to clawback costs after disputes are concluded and paid to the bank. A breach of contract of warranty is illustrated by my personal case, which is not with the CBA. Whilst in dispute, my bank issued me with $155,000 of additional credit to pay for their lawyers and charged me interest for the privilege. At the same time, I was required to defend myself in a complex court system. There was no quality of arms. I'm aware of many instances where CBA also engages in this practice. For example, in a current and ongoing case, CBA has issued credit of $348,253.73 to date plus interest to one of its customers for legal advice without any clarity or itemization. For one month alone, the amount was $76,360.61. Numerous approaches to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority served no useful purpose in resolving the matter rather they ran interference for the CBA. Will the CBA undertake to reverse those charges and associated interest and conduct the dispute in line with its published modeling principles going forward?

I'm sorry that you've had a bad experience and the customer that you referenced. I can't talk to individual specifics, particularly neither here or at other banks. We do follow our procedures. We work with AFCA in the way that we need to across all complaints. But if there are specific issues you would like to talk about or whoever you're representing, we have our group customer relations team here, and they will absolutely meet with you after the meeting to have that conversation.

Do you have name of the personal?

I beg your pardon. Is there any individual? Someone will come and find you immediately after the meeting.

Okay. My second question. I say this with some experience as I'm ex member of AFCA, membership #79413. There's 2 of us on the planet that are being consumers, members of AFCA, [ Rita Mazelsky ]. She's asked you questions. But yes. So I do have some background. The Australian Financial Complaints Authority, AFCA, is governed by a set of rules, which is approved by ASIC, but the Australian Treasury also has a regulatory relationship. ASIC was found to be wanting by the banking rule commission and is currently being investigated by a Senate committee. The Treasury conducted a review of AFCA. As that could only be described as a white wash, and its stated this is Treasury stated in a letter on behalf of the responsible minister, Stephen Jones, the government -- "the government does not have the ability to review or overturn decisions of AFCA. They create a monster they can't control." This function was spelled out by James Shipton, the former CEO of ASIC, in his testimony to a Senate committee. He stated, my attempts to raise these important concerns with ASIC and Treasury were rejected. Instead, Treasury informed me that they had no obligation to advise ASIC, one of their portfolio of agencies to correct these erroneous statements to parliament. Yes, correct that was approved by an ex banker was called the Treasury Amendments. This is important, putting consumers first, establishment of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority at 2018. My questions are, would the CBA agree that AFCA does not put consumers first, is run by and put their member banks first, is governed and regulated by an ineffective industry captured ASIC and a dysfunctional treasury and an a minister? If CBA disagrees, how would it describe ASIC after the Treasury and the minister?

So I would disagree with all of your propositions and believe that we have very detailed engagement with all of the regulators that you've identified, and they take their roles very seriously and we receive and engage with them and their requests very seriously as well.

Do you have the same engagement with the consumer?

We engage with consumers every single day, voice technology through the app, and we get feedback, and we received that feedback, act on that feedback. And where we don't get it right, it can go to after and other regulators.

Just based on my experience, that explanation is deficient. We will leave it there.

Thank you very much. And I acknowledge that your experience has been less than optimal. We might move now to microphone #4, and then we'll move to online.

Chair, I would like to introduce Noel Oliver.

Welcome, Oliver.

Good morning.

I think we're into the afternoon.

Yes, we are. Sorry -- my name is [ Noel Oliver ]. I'm long-term customer of the Common Wealth Bank. I'm a shareholder and I'm ex staff. And today, I want to make a third complaint about the same matter. I've already made 2 and I lost the word when you say you're taking seriously. Well, I actually spoke to -- this my third Annual General Meeting. I've been to 2 others. At the first one I met Mr. Comyn's predecessor, who I thought was very nice. And he -- it's a staffing matter, and he took my name and phone number and organized for me to go into HR for an appointment. I'm not happy with the results. And then since then, I made another complaint, the same things happened. So what I'd like to do today is actually make an appointment. Do you see Mr. Comyn, I wrote at the top I want to see the CEO himself. And I also would like to see whoever is the head of HR. At my second meeting, after the meeting I went to a smaller room. Mr. Comyn was there and a man and a lady who were husband and wife, who'd actually got up on spoke during the AGM meeting together with 3 other people from their group who had some sort of agreement with the CBA. And when I went to this smaller room, this husband and wife joined Mr. Comyn, CEO again. As soon as they finished speaking, he left the room. I was waiting with my daughter, who's not here today with me wanting to speak to him. And I actually spoke to the lady who was Head of HR at that time. It was actually, I think, the last meeting before COVID hit. And -- she -- I mentioned what had happened to my staff at work, and she said she would have a look at my problem, but then unfortunately, I never followed it up because it's something that actually been told by the first time I went to HR. But now I would like to follow it up because it's really affected my life. Yesterday apparently was World Mental Health Day. And in -- on Page 15, on yesterday's telegraph, there was a very small article to do with World Mental Health Day and also the workplace. All I want really is an appointment to see the CEO because I'm really fed up with what's happened to me. I actually joined the bank 50 years ago this year. Only the thing is I left after the - because of what happened after 30.5 years. If the bank had left me alone, I would have been still working for them this year, and I would have been retired -- got up my 50-year service at the end of February. And I would have retired in July. I'm really not happy. I'm very upset and I'm really angry.

No, I can hear that, and I'm very sorry to hear that. We have some group customer relations people here. I will get them to come to you or if you would move to the rear, they'll and contact will be made. Inside the meeting is not the place to agree for any of the Board or [ ELT ] to make meetings, but we will go through GCR and follow up on your complaint.

I would like to get at the top because I haven't had any resolution...

I understand that, but I'm actually going to ask if you speak to the GCR people, but I acknowledge the distress that you've shared with us today.

You've got no idea. Putting up with stuff in my personal lock and then -- it's not relevant.

I acknowledge your comments. And as I said, someone from GCR will come to you now, and we'll progress that review. We might go online.

Chair, I have no questions on this item at this stage.

Thank you. We might go to microphone #1, but for those of you who've been sitting here for a while, there is food outside and feel free to go and get discount. So, microphone #1.

Chair, I would like to introduce Mr. Kazim.

Mr. Kazim. Welcome back.

My question relates to that question that I asked earlier about use of consultants. What I meant to finding out is, is there any reflection within the bank using the Edgar Schein model, given the 3 elements of the organization culture, artifacts, beliefs and values and the third one is assumptions. How much reflection is there as opposed to continue to use outside consultants and whatever else is involved?

I think the majority of work and thinking and application improvement, challenge, data, people attraction, retention, development is all done using internal skills and capabilities. We're a big organization, and we want the best people inside the bank to support the bank performance best it can for our customers and our shareholders. And consultants, actually extremely capable when used appropriately, and we will continue to use consultants where we think it actually adds to the fields that we already have. Where that doesn't meet the criteria, we will not be using them. So I think we'll move on to the next remuneration report. But if there are follow-up questions, we can come back to those. I now put the resolution to the meeting and note that the Board recommends that shareholders vote in favor of Item 3. Direct and proxy votes received resolution. Please mark your voting card in relation to Item 3, the adoption of the 2023. [Voting]

Item 4 is a resolution of the grant of securities to CEO, Matt Comyn. The company is proposing to grant the following -- the following securities to Mr. Comyn under the company's employee equity plan. 78,642 restricted share units as 2024 -- long-term alignment reward and 78,642 performance rights at the 2024 financial year, long term versus the LTVR award. These units and rights are the elements of the CEO's remuneration that support a focus on long-term performance, leadership and strategy execution and provide sustainable long-term shareholder alignment. These grants will be in the form of restricted share units for the LTAP and performance rights for the LTVR. The CEO's LTAP awards are subject to a pregrant assessment by the Board, and the Board approved the full grant of restricted share units. As a result, if shareholders approve this item today, Matt will be granted 17,642 restricted share units. These units will be granted in 2 tranches with 50% restricted for 4 years to 30 June 2027 and 50% restricted for 5 years to 30 June 2028. Matt will only receive value from this grant after the restriction period subject to the prevest assessment. The LTVR performance rights will be subject to performance measures over the period 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2027. These measures are described in the detail in the Notice of Meeting. In summary, 50% of the award is subject to a relative total shareholder return measure compared to a peer group of the 20 largest companies by market capitalization on the ASX at 1 July 2023, excluding CBA and resources companies. And 50% of the award is subject to a relative total shareholder return measure compared to a financial services peer group. Following the end of the 4-year performance period, the performance measures will be tested, and the number of performance rights -- that the performance rights will be automatically exercised to shares, subject to a further holding period of 2 years to 30 June, 2029, and will continue to be subject to dealing restrictions during this period. Vesting of the restricted share units and performance rights following the end of the restriction and performance period will be subject to Malus consideration. This is consideration of whether there have been any serious or material or reducing the awards, including to nil prior to vesting. If they vest, the awards all those at the outcomes appropriately consider risks, accountabilities and reputation outcomes. Restricted share units and performance rights do not carry any voting rights. As part of the approach to the alignment with shareholder experience, Matt will receive dividend equivalent payments in respect of the restricted share units, but only in relation to the restriction period. Matt will not receive any value for franking credits. Any shares allocated to map on vesting will carry the same, including with respect to voting and dividends. Full details are outlined in the notice of meeting. I now invite shareholders and proxy holders in the room to move to a microphone to ask any questions or make comments on this item. I also invite shareholders and proxy holders to submit questions online, microphone #1.

Chair, I would like to introduce Mr. Michael Sanderson.

Welcome, Mr. Sanderson.

Again something completely different. I've left this one to the end as it relates to the voice. Just as a bit of background [indiscernible]. I worked for an aboriginal enterprise back in the early 70s probably a lot of you weren't even around. I've been able to move [indiscernible]. So I do come with a bit of knowledge. CBA public supports voice, the details that we were voting for state. The Parliament will decide the composition, functions and procedures of the voice, not local, aboriginal Torres Strait Islander people. Put simply, the voice is proposing whitefella parliament choose who advises it, is not getting around it. They are the details that we are voting for. Anything else is just conjecture. The voice is not unlike CBA's customer advocate or the bank control Australian Complaints Authority, the advocate and ethical decision makers are appointed and controlled by the organizations, they supposedly inform both are ineffective and filed self-serving models. Why does CBA support the voice?

I've explained in quite detail - in some detail today why we support the voice. But in our Reconciliation Action Plan, we identified that we want to have First Nations people supporting us, make the right decisions for their First Nation solutions, whether it's employment or products or services. And to a point in your question, we have an indigenous advisory council and an indigenous leadership team that actually support advice to the Board and to the executive leadership team to inform indigenous voices in those forums. And we found that, that holds us in much better stead in looking after all of our customers, our employees in the community in which we operate.

I struggle to see how - that seems fine. I got no problem with it. That's following, but how is it related to the voice? It's the parliament that chooses who advises it, not the people. But...

Mr. Sanderson, I think I've spoken at length about the voice as I've mentioned many of us have different views. We think that indigenous people having a voice is better for everyone, which I think you may well support, but

I think you support, but that's not what we want to offer - what's on offer is the parliament choosing your advisers and that's the point I'm trying to make, which nobody is acknowledging.

I acknowledge your point, but we have a perspective, which is policy based. I think we agree on the policy, and that's what we will continue to communicate that which we support. Thank you very much. We might go online.

Chair, a question on this item from Stephen Mayne. Could the CEO summarize his past LTI grants as to whether they have vested or lapsed. Also has he ever sold any ordinary shares in the company or bought any on market without relying on an incentive scheme to build his equity position in the company? Please not say look it up in the annual report and through ASX announcements. It's complicated, and the CEO could actually summarize the situation.

Thank you, Mr. Mayne. I think I'll take that question. We have a compensation framework that has both short-term and long-term incentives. And over time -- and a lot of that is in shares. Those shares have to be earned, and we have a requirement for the CEO of his base salary, which the CEO actually meets and for executive leaders to also have a holding in shares as well. From a policy perspective, I think you also just in the LTVR, the long-term incentives that are awarded to the CEO and executives, actually are on foot to as long as 2020. Long-term focus of share exposure to create alignment between the activities of the CEO and management and our shareholders. It's the right incentive, and it's the right structure of compensation. To the specifics of your question, try to disclose when they sell or buy share, and they are sold and they are disclosed to the ASX as it relates to refer if this meeting asking any individual what their buy and sell shares are. What's important is the policy. The policy is here to and that we require and that we meet all of the regulatory.

Chair, a question from [ Rita Mazalevski ]. Chair, what was the value of session payments for the last financial year? Does the CEO's remuneration package incorporate mechanisms which apply for these payments which would impact on the CEO's overall remuneration, if not why not?

So we have had significant remediation programs over a number of years that result to failures of some time ago. At the time of those failures, which have been very clear about, actions were taken by the then Board in relation to the compensation of many executives, and there were many changes on the executive leadership team. So the remediation program has been very complicated, undertaken over a significant period of time, but the cause of the issues was addressed at the time by the Board, and there were management impacts as a result of that.

Chair, a question from Stephen Mayne. Given the interesting discussions today, including this LTI grant for our excellent CEO, Matt Comyn, could the Chair undertake to make an archived copy of the webcast plus a full transcript of proceedings available on the company's website. The likes of 9, AGL, ASX, ANZ, Domino's, Lendlease all started producing AGM transcripts in 2021. With you follow suit today, it's something IAG has been doing since 2003. Politicians aren't told to watch the video. They get handset, how about the same for retail shareholders?

We do provide, I think, we've said within 24 hours, a complete copy of the webcast. We believe that is a better reflection of the meeting, and that will be the practice that we will continue.

I think we've just heard this question. So no more questions on this item at this stage.

Thank you. We'll go to microphone #3.

Chair, I would like to introduce [ Sim ]

Sir. I'm in [ Simhadri ]. I'm from UTS business postgraduate. Received shares but haven't received dividends and [indiscernible] number is confused [indiscernible]. Would you help me which staff from the point of place?

Sorry, I apologize. I just can't quite make out what is being said.

I'm confused about my [indiscernible] number, and I haven't received dividends. I'm theoretically passed out from postgraduation from UTS. Received the share from Commonwealth Bank through my employer.

Given it sounds like it's a personal issue, I've got group customer relations coming to you right now to assist you with your questions. I think it's to do with the dividend payment. Microphone #4.

Chair, I would like to introduce [ Dudy Jap].

Welcome back, Dudy.

Last question. It's a simple one. Okay. Basically, this is an expansion from Mr. Stephen Mayne's question in regards to easing executive teams owning 2x or 3x CBA shareholding, I've noticed here loans to KMP. With regards to that, would members of the executive team be able to use the loans provided to them with the KMP. What would happen if they leave the organization? What would happen there with the loans that you've made to them?

So those loans are made on commercial basis, and they have to be disclosed. So they've done basically at arms' length and the disclosure is in the documents because they are KMP. So hypothetically, if the KMP was to leave, it's a commercial arrangement in relation to that loan.

And would that -- and would that be subject to share price manipulation to say, for example, to increase the share price? Can they be susceptible to that?

KMP are not allowed to -- I think they're completely unrelated to shares. Mr. [ Corfield ], microphone #3, I believe.

Mr. Malley, Assistant Treasurer, Stephen Jones, glowingly spoke of all recommendations from the Royal Commission are now being implemented far being the last one to be legislated. I have a particular interest in Commissioner Hayne's key recommendation to protect our farmers. Commissioner Hayne recommended a nationally consistent farm debt mediation rather than the stated deficient inconsistent state-based schemes. Nothing has been done here to protect our farmers in this recommendation. Every bank that's including the Commonwealth Bank and the Australian Bankers Association are on record over perhaps 10 years that many bank inquiries suggesting and promoting a national scheme should be introduced. CBA, I think, is the second largest agricultural lender in Australia. Will you work with me and NAB has already committed to work with me to introduce a consistent national farm debt mediation game?

We support farm debt mediation to help farm borrowers in difficulty reach apparent equitable way forward. It operates on a state-by-state basis, and we support measures to try and harmonize those schemes. The previous federal government designed a better practice guide, and we support this and we will continue to focus on that. I'm not sure we're obviously always happy to engage, but I think we'll be dealing directly with the federal government and through the ABA as the appropriate parties in which to engage process. So that will be the methodology that we will follow.

Just noting that the federal government too did all of the main recommendations are being introduced, and they haven't. So there's going to be some difficulties there.

Thank you very much for your comment. Do we have any questions online?

No further questions at this stage, Chair.

Given there are no further questions, I now put the resolution to the meeting and note that the Board Matt Comyn abstaining, recommends that shareholders vote in favor of Item 4. Details of the direct and proxy votes received prior to the meeting in relation to this resolution are displayed on the screen. Please mark your voting card in relation to Item 4, the grant of securities to Matt Comyn. [Voting] That concludes the agenda. Please complete your yellow voting card and place it in one of the ballot boxes that representatives of Link Market Services are now holding or that are near the exits. If you need any assistance with completing your voting card, Link representatives are available in the room to assist you. As mentioned previously, the results of the poll will be released on the ASX and made available on the bank's website later today. I declare that the poll will close 15 minutes after the meeting closes. Thank you very much for your attendance today and for your continued support. I encourage you to provide us with your feedback to take more by contacting us by the Investor Center on our website. I now declare the meeting closed, subject to the finalization of the poll. Thank you.