ASIC spotlight on school banking programs

[Dracony]

The financial regulator will investigate banking programs in primary schools, amid calls from consumer groups for Australia's largest bank to stop using schools to market its products.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission's review will assess the benefits and risks of the programs as well as how they are implemented and marketed to school communities.

Consumer advocates want banks to remove their branded marketing from schools and have focused their attention on the largest in-school banking scheme, the Commonwealth Bank's long-running Dollarmites program.

Announcing the review on Thursday, ASIC deputy chair Peter Kell said transparency around school banking programs is important.

"ASIC wants to understand the motivations and behaviours around school banking programs to ensure they ultimately serve the interests of young Australians, and to enable school communities to have an understanding of the potential impact of these programs," he said.

Consumer group Choice this month awarded a "Shonky award" to the Dollarmites program and with three other groups called on CBA to remove bank-branded marketing from schools.

Choice's head of campaigns and policy Sarah Agar said the ASIC review was an important step to deal with CBA's "branded marketing material dressed up as a financial literacy initiative".

"The Dollarmites scheme uses slick marketing to get at kids when they're young and market products to them, turning them into customers for life," Ms Agar said.

More than 303,000 students and almost 4000 schools participate in the CBA program.

CBA's executive general manager retail banking services Mark Jones said the bank was continuing to make changes to its 87-year-old program and welcomed ASIC's review.

"CommBank fully supports initiatives that promote financial literacy," he said.

Mr Jones noted the program was voluntary for schools and parents, adding it was designed to to encourage regular savings behaviour and good money habits.

After a Choice campaign to end the commissions schools receive for signing up children to bank accounts, CBA changed the commission structure in January to no longer link the payments to the value of students' deposits.

Schools now get a one-off payment of $200 when the first student makes their initial deposit, an annual contribution of up to $600, and ongoing payments of $5 for every 10 deposits per student.

Mr Jones said the payments were to compensate schools for program administration and volunteers' time, with schools on average receiving about $500 this year.

CBA in May apologised following revelations some staff deposited small amounts - typically about 10 cents - into children's Youthsaver accounts to make them appear active and improve the employees' performance bonuses.

The practice was discovered and banned in 2013.