A company has denied it plays on the significance of funerals in Aboriginal culture to sell insurance policies for children, as it rejected a call for it to face possible criminal charges.
Barristers assisting the banking royal commission recommended a number of potential misconduct findings against the Aboriginal Community Benefit Fund, including some where criminal as well as civil penalties apply.
Gold Coast-based ACBF has rejected the proposed misconduct findings, which include suggestions it engaged in misleading conduct.
In a submission released on Tuesday, counsel for ACBF accepted it promoted its products as being tailored to meet the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but argued that was neither misleading nor deceptive.
ACBF said the evidence before the royal commission supported a conclusion that its products do, generally, provide a benefit to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who might otherwise find it difficult or impossible to meet the costs of a funeral.
It rejected counsel assisting's submission that it plays on the cultural significance of funerals to Aboriginal people and indigenous mortality statistics to actively sell its policies to children and young people who have little need for the product.
ACBF said the evidence from a consumer witness was that there was a strong correlation between the importance of "sorry business" to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the uptake of funeral insurance.
"The suggestion made by counsel assisting that children and young people in indigenous communities 'have little need' for funeral insurance also fails to appreciate the significantly higher mortality rates for indigenous infants and children when compared with non-indigenous infants and children," it said.
ACBF also rejected a suggestion that its marketing materials were misleading, saying the use of the word 'Aboriginal' and associated imagery was directly related to its intended purpose of meeting the need for funeral insurance in indigenous communities.
Following a hearing into financial issues affecting indigenous Australians, ANZ rejected counsel assisting's submission the bank may have engaged in misconduct - by breaching banking code obligations - after charging customers with transaction accounts high rates of interest and fees for informal overdrafts they did not request.
ANZ rejected a suggestion the bank was inadequately concerned with placing customers in the most appropriate product and more concerned with revenue enhancement, arguing there was no evidence that was the case.
