Commonwealth Bank chairman David Turner has blamed the distraction of the global financial crisis as the reason why the board and management did not see the bank's financial planning scandal coming.
Under questioning by angry shareholders at the bank's AGM, Mr Turner said the board had acted as soon as it realised the extent of the problem and created the best and most generous remediation program the industry had ever seen.
Mr Turner twice blamed the GFC when grilled about the scandal, which saw investors lose hundreds of millions of dollars when their savings - often life savings - were put in high risk products without permission, which planners were financially incentivised to use.
"If you think back to 2007-2009, when all this occurred, the executives at the top of the bank were deeply concerned with ensuring the bank continued to exist," he said in reply to shareholder Francis Gilbert, who said heads should have rolled over the scandal.
"It was the time that Lehman Brothers went broke, banks stopped lending to each other and wholesale funds for banks were almost impossible to obtain.
"The board and senior management were very focused on ensuring the bank was in good shape to continue and the bank did come through it all."
Mr Turner apologised and admitted the bank's initial response last year was not good enough.
He expected to pay out more compensation, with $50 million already given to investors.
But he rejected the suggestion the bank was not accountable and had only acted because of the fear of a Senate inquiry.
The only planners working at the bank now were properly qualified, with training improved, the remuneration structure changed to reflect customer satisfaction and an independent complaints process was set up for investors.
However Finance Sector Union secretary Fiona Jordan, representing many of the banks employees, rejected that assertion in a statement at the AGM.
The culture of flogging products that were not in customers' best interests and humiliating league tables on whiteboards still existed, she said.
Employees were "burdened with sales targets that they must meet to avoid daily humiliation, to qualify for a couple of per cent in wage rises and to keep their job", she said.
Meanwhile, board members Andrew Mohl and Launa Inman were easily re-elected despite industry super fund First Super voting against them in a show of protest against CBA's governance, given they were directors during the scandal.
