Two former Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and Storm Financial employees have accused the bank of lying about its involvement with the collapsed investment firm.

A submission to the Parliamentary joint committee’s inquiry into financial services by Carmela Richards and Kristy Devney, who worked for the bank for 20 and 12 years respectively before joining Storm, criticises the CBA for blaming its staff for discrepancies involving Storm.

“The CBA’s information regarding Storm is not correct and furthermore they know this,” they said. “For an organisation the size of the bank to blame its staff for the problems it has is not professional nor is it credible.”

The bank has blamed its retail lending staff in Townsville for not always following its lending practices.

“Some of those staff, with knowledge of our internal processes, were persuaded to join Storm and, we have learned, exerted pressure on their former colleagues,” the CBA said.

Ms Devney believes she was the only bank employee to join Storm in this period and she left of her own accord. She and Ms Richards say investment applications that relied on income outside the bank’s policy guidelines were not allowed to be approved locally, anyway.

The bank has denied the allegations. A spokesman says the CBA confirms the content of its submission and looks forward to appearing before the committee early next month.

“The bank has indicated that it has identified some deficiencies in its lending practices and as a result has implemented a comprehensive resolution scheme which is available for all Storm clients,” she told insuranceNEWS.com.au.