Commonwealth Bank of Australia

In 1911 the Australian federal parliament passed the Commonwealth Bank Act 1911, creating the country’s first national bank and the first Australian bank to run both savings and trading business.⁠[1]

The legislation was passed on December 22, 1911, and the first branch opened in Melbourne on July 15, 1912.⁠[2]

In 1920 responsibility for issuing banknotes passed from the Commonwealth Treasury to the bank. In 1960 the Reserve Bank of Australia took over central banking, and the bank’s other business passed to the newly created Commonwealth Banking Corporation.⁠[2]

The bank launched the Bankcard credit card in 1974, the Autobank automated teller service in 1981 and EFTPOS card payments in 1984. In February 1989 it acquired 75% of New Zealand’s ASB Bank, and on January 1, 1991, it became the legal successor to the State Bank of Victoria.⁠[3]

Privatisation of the bank began in 1991 and was completed in 1996. The bank went on to acquire Colonial Limited in 2000 and Bankwest in 2008.⁠[4]

On June 4, 2018, the Australian financial intelligence and anti-money-laundering regulator AUSTRAC and the bank reached agreement on a A$700 million penalty to resolve Federal Court proceedings over anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism-financing breaches.⁠[5]

The bank admitted 53,750 contraventions of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006, including 53,506 threshold transaction reports on cash deposits of A$10,000 or more through intelligent deposit machines that were not filed on time, covering about A$625 million of transactions between November 2012 and September 2015. AUSTRAC said that, if approved by the court, it would be “the largest ever civil penalty in Australian corporate history.”⁠[6]

The Federal Court approved the settlement on June 20, 2018; the bank paid the A$700 million penalty and A$2.5 million of AUSTRAC’s legal costs.⁠[7]

In 2020 the bank agreed to sell 55% of Colonial First State to KKRKKRKKR (Kohlberg Kravis Roberts) is an investment firm engaged in alternative asset management, capital markets services, and insurance. Jerome Kohlberg, Henry Kravis, and George Roberts co-founded the firm in 1976. Its managed funds invest in private equity, credit, and real assets, and its subsidiary Global Atlantic operates retirement, life insurance, and reinsurance businesses. KKR listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2010 under the ticker KKR.Open the full entry for A$1.7 billion; Colonial First State became a standalone entity in 2022.⁠[4]

On March 14, 2025, the bank announced an expanded strategic partnership with, and an investment in, AnthropicAnthropicAnthropic is an artificial intelligence research and product company founded in 2021 that develops the Claude models, assistant, and tools such as Claude Code, and operates as a public benefit corporation. Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei are its co-founders, and its research covers model safety, interpretability, and steerability.Open the full entry, without disclosing the amount. Engineers from both sides were to explore products that serve and protect customers, including protection against scams and fraud. Group Chief Information Officer Gavin Munroe said the partnership “will help our teams to accelerate our AI capability.”⁠[8]

In April 2026 Anthropic opened its first Australian office in Sydney, with plans to deepen its relationship with the bank and to work with Quantium and Xero.⁠[9]

On August 12, 2026, the bank announced results for the year ended June 30, 2026: statutory net profit of A$10.866 billion and cash net profit of A$10.982 billion, both up 7%, and a full-year dividend of A$5.05 per share. At year-end, total assets were about A$1.45 trillion and full-time equivalent staff numbered 51,714.⁠[10]

At the annual general meeting on October 14, 2026, chief executive Matt Comyn said the bank had invested more than A$1 billion in protecting customers from fraud, scams, cyber threats and financial crime and had begun rolling out the AI service CommBank Companion to some customers. He said: “We believe AI could be the most significant technology shift we have seen.”⁠[11]

In the 2026 financial year the bank served 18.6 million customers. Retail Banking Services includes the Bankwest and Unloan brands, the Business Banking division offers share trading and margin lending through CommSec, and the New Zealand subsidiary ASB provides banking, wealth and insurance products. The bank’s registered office is in Sydney.⁠[12]