Commonwealth Bank of Australia has further bolstered its coronavirus support for home loan and credit card customers.
The bank announced it will make a one-time payment to all customers who are receiving a home loan deferral because of the coronavirus.
Group executive Angus Sullivan said this meant for an average loan of $350,000, CBA would be refunding approximately $45 to offset the effect on interest over the six-month period.
Mr Sullivan said the bank would also automatically refund late fees and interest for March for any customer who missed their credit card minimum that month.
Other measures previously announced by CBA to curb the impact of coronavirus included the introduction of a 70 basis points interest rate reduction for home loans with one, two and three year fixed terms to 2.29 per cent, marking a record low.
The bank also rolled out a 60bps interest rate increase on 12-month term deposits for personal customers to 1.7 per cent per annum - 1.45 per cent above the RBA's official cash rate of 0.25 per cent.
The Reserve Bank of Australia cut the interest rate to a new record low two weeks ago following an ad-hoc meeting of the board in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
CBA chief executive Matt Comyn was quizzed on why the bank only cut interest rates for fixed-rate mortgages and not the standard variable rate.
He said the bank was focused on providing interest rate relief for small businesses and giving older people with term deposits a bit of a boost.
Australia's big four banks in March all moved to suspend small business loan repayments for six months to guard against the coronavirus.
Commonwealth Bank's stock price has dropped by about 25 per cent from just below $80 on December 31 to $60.90 at 1136 AEDT.
Meanwhile, NAB's stock price has dropped about 35 per cent from $24.63 on December 31 to $16.04 at 1138 AEDT today, with Westpac also dropping about 35 per cent from $24.23 to $16.02 and ANZ by a similar ratio from $24.63 to $16.09.
By AAP
