“Very few” Commonwealth Financial Planning (CFP) clients turned to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) to resolve disputes with their financial advisers, according to the bank.

But it says customers were advised of the service.

“In our communications with clients we referred them to FOS in the event that they were dissatisfied,” Commonwealth executives told the Senate Economics References Committee’s review of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s (ASIC) performance.

“We note very few clients sought assistance from FOS, though all clients were told this was an option for them.”

The bank offered clients $5000 to pay for independent reviews of their advice by qualified accountants, solicitors or licensed financial advisers.

“Customers were under no obligation to choose any particular [reviewer].”

Commonwealth says the money has been offered to all CFP and Financial Wisdom clients who received advice from staff subsequently penalised by ASIC.

It says the offer has attracted responses from entities hoping to benefit from the client disputes. It refused some funding requests because the proposed reviewers’ qualifications were insufficient.

The name of one rejected financial advice company has been redacted from the written response.

The bank says some clients were cold-called by a group, the name of which is again redacted.

It fears confidential client details have been accessed by a third party.

“Our concern continued when [redacted] was unable to satisfy it was licensed or qualified to give financial or legal advice.

“It appeared to us that one of [redacted’s] representatives had previously been banned from the industry by ASIC for two years and, in addition to seeking payment from CFP of $5000 to advise customers on CFP’s assessment of past advice, they had entered into ‘no-win, no-fee’ arrangements with those customers, seeking to be entitled to up to 15% of any compensation payment.”

The bank reported the matter to ASIC and the website offering the services was taken down.