Code of Conduct and Ethics for Commonwealth Bank

This code of conduct is designed with the aim to ensure adherence to highest professional and ethical standards in the course of the conduct of the business of the Commonwealth Bank. The code of conduct is applicable to the board of the directors, employees and all the members of the organisation. Read more about discrimination, exploitation, corruption, dishonest and fraudulent behaviour, whistleblower protections and more.

17 August 2018
Governance and Ethics

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Code of Conduct and Ethics

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Table of contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Applicability...............................................................................................................................3
Discrimination............................................................................................................................3
Exploitation................................................................................................................................4
Corruption..................................................................................................................................5
Dishonest and Fraudulent Behaviour.........................................................................................6
Whistleblower Protections.........................................................................................................7
Whom to report?....................................................................................................................7
Reporting framework.............................................................................................................8
Others.........................................................................................................................................8
Enforcement...............................................................................................................................9
Affirmation...............................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
This code of conduct is designed with the aim to ensure adherence to highest professional and
ethical standards in the course of the conduct of the business of the Commonwealth Bank. In
addition to this, the intention is to ensure the statutory and the legal compliance of the
Corporations Act, 2001, Australian Stock Exchange, the Australian Accounting Standards,
the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and all the relevant laws, regulations
and practices in relation to the banking and the guarantee services (Commonwealth Bank,
2017). The code of conduct is in addition to the various policies of the organisation on the
lines of the business gifts, anti-money laundering, dress code guidelines and the policy on the
employment of the relatives.
Applicability
The code of conduct is applicable to the board of the directors, employees and all the
members of the organisation.
Discrimination
The organisation understands its responsibility of creating a work environment on the pillars
of the mutual respect, professionalism, integrity and dignity, as has been prescribed in the
Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), along with the federal and the state anti-discrimination laws
(Australian Human Rights Commission, 2018). The unlawful discrimination refers to the
favourable treatment at the workplace because of a characteristic protected by law. As
prescribed in the Equal Opportunity Act 2010, few of the 18 personal characteristics that
make discrimination in employment against the law are race, colour, nationality, origin,
religion, sex, pregnancy or marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability and
age (Victorian Equal Opportunity & Human Rights Commission, 2018).

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The discrimination can take place at the organisation at various stages and the forms. This
can occur during the recruitment process in the manner in which the interview is conducted
and offering of unfair terms and conditions of the employment (Loudon, McPhail and
Wilkinson, 2015). In addition to this, the unjustified or favourable selection for training,
transfer, denial for promotion and unfair retrenchment, dismissal and demotion also fall in the
category of the unlawful discrimination (Gaze and Smith, 2016).
Some of the examples of discrimination at the workplace are denial to promotion because of
the pregnancy, dismissing an employee because of ill health, preference of promotions based
on the ethnicity (Cox and Knoth, 2017) . The aim of the organisation is to strive to maintain a
disciplined, healthy and ethical work environment, and where the conflicts are resolved in a
polite manner. The managers and leaders must ensure that the various aspects of the
employment relationship are free from any personal bias and are based on individual
performance, merit and objectivity.
Exploitation
The code of conduct of the organisation expressly prohibits the officials and employees to
engage in sexual harassment, bullying behaviour and the unlawful exploitation activities. As
stated in the section 789FD of the Fair Work Amendment Act 2013 (Cth), bullying refers to
the unreasonable behaviour of an individual or a group of individuals towards a worker (Fair
Work Commission, 2018). This includes behaviour that creates a risk to health and safety
(Appelbaum, Semerjian and Mohan, 2012). Bullying includes a range of activities which are
listed as follows. The list is not exhaustive.
 Using offensive language or yelling;

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 Acts leading to psychological harassment;
 Exclusion or isolation of employees
 Assigning impossible jobs or meaningless tasks unrelated to the job;
 Criticising the employees on a constant basis or suppressing their ideas;
and many more such kind of activities.
Harassment provisions are mentioned in a number of legislation, some of them are mentioned
as following.
o Sex Discrimination Act 1984, states the definition of sexual harassment in the section
28A, which includes an unwelcome sexual advance, unwelcome conduct which is
sexually offensive to the other person, request for sexual favour, and more such
related activities (Austlii, 2018). The above activities lead to humiliation or
intimidation.
o According to the section 25 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, an employee’s
disability should not be used as a ground for harassment (Disabled world, 2018).
According to the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), some examples of
harassment are sending sexually offensive emails or text messages, unwelcome physical
contact, displaying of pornographic posters or racially offensive content, telling insulting
jokes about sexual preference or appearance of any person and many more.
The employees, officers and the managers are required to be aware of their behaviour at the
workplace. This would include compliance with the obligations while conducting or

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conversing verbally, in writing, through email, or via text messaging and other such channels
at the workplace.
Corruption
The organisation works on the lines of the zero-tolerance policy for bribery and corruption.
Corrupt or the fraudulent activities involve theft of money, data or the property of the entity;
deliberate falsification, concealment or the destruction of the documents of the information in
the information technology systems of the entity; and include the acts of bribery (Vickers,
2014).
Bribe refers to the act of influencing a person’s actions or decisions to gain or retain a
business advantage and is induced by anything of value given or offered, promised, accepted
or authorised to accept either directly or indirectly, whether in monetary terms or not (Zgheib,
2014).
The employees and officers should not accept gifts, entertainment, any kind of incentive from
the current, the potential customers, or the suppliers unless they are allowed to do so as per
the business gifts guidelines. The employees or the officers should be allowed to do so only
with the approval of the senior management. In addition to this, the employees must not
provide the products or the services to the customers if it is suspected or awareness of the fact
that the proceeds of the same would be directly or indirectly used in the criminal or illegal
activities.
It is regarded as the duty of the employees and the officers to report it to the leaders or the
appropriate authorities about the suspected fraud or the corrupt activity occurring in the
entity. This would be in addition to the persuasive behaviour of the colleagues or the
customers to depart from the anti-corruption or anti-bribery policies or procedures of the
company. The failure to do so would itself be regarded as fraud itself.

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Dishonest and Fraudulent Behaviour
Conflict of interest and the resulting fraudulent behaviour can arise at various levels. This can
occur at an employee level, directors’ level and the overall group level because of the placing
of the individual or personal interests ahead of that of customers, stakeholders and
organisation as a whole (Cubbage and Brooks, 2016). Dishonest behaviour can take place in
the form of dealings with the vendors, customers, other entities, acquaintances and relatives.
Thus, the employees and officers must not engage in the following types of activities. The list
laid down below is not exhaustive.
 Entering into professional engagements outside the organisation.
 Taking a business decision in favour of self or the relatives and the acquaintances that
are detrimental to the interest of the organisation.
 Using the confidential information possessed during the course of the services, for the
personal benefits (Reamer, 2013).
 Using the facilities of the bank, employees or properties for the purpose of to be used
in the personal activities.
 Accepting gifts, favours or other benefits, in other than the normal course of the
business that may be in the position of influencing the business of the commercial
decisions.
Whistleblower Protections
As mentioned above, the code expressly prohibits the direct or indirect engagement in
unlawful discrimination, exploitation on the lines of sexual harassment and bullying,
dishonest or fraudulent behaviour and the corrupt activities. The matters may be in the form
of breach of one or more of the legal or regulatory requirements, policies or guidelines of the
organisation. Any employee, director, consultant or any other person, who wishes to or

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attempts to report in connection with the above-mentioned misconducts, whether
anonymously or not, is known as the whistleblower (Brown, Lewis, Moberly and
Vandekerckhove, 2014). It is essential that there is comfortable and upfront response in the
form of raising the concerned matters that are of critical importance.
The code of conduct expressly would provide protection expressly against reprisal for having
made the said reporting of the misconduct.
Whom to report?
Whistleblower Protection Officer (WPO): He or she is a designated representative
specifically tasked with the responsibility of protecting as well as safeguarding the interests
of whistleblowers, as mentioned above. The WPO along with the financial, legal and
operational advisers as required would work towards the fulfilment of the various provisions
of the code of conduct and the guidelines in relation to the same.
Whistleblower Investigations Officer (WIO): The representative is tasked with the
responsibility of conducting preliminary investigations into reports received from the
whistleblowers and the prima facie allegations made therein. The WIO is charged with the
prime role of investigating the substance and the materiality of the complaints. Accordingly,
he or she would either collect the pieces of evidence in support of the claim or refute the
report to be baseless.
Reporting framework
Internal Reporting. It is the responsibility of the immediate senior managers to interact with
the whistleblowers and provide adequate support to them if they wish to discuss the matter.
The leaders would provide the opportune time to clarify the incident, ask questions and
discussions are required to remain confidential at all the times.

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External Reporting. Alternatively, the whistleblower may choose to report the misconducts,
anonymously if preferred. The reporting can be done via call, post or the email of the
whistleblower or the investigation committee.
Others
Some of the other guidelines are as follows.
 Non-engagement in the insider trading activities of the employees or managers,
because of having access to the material, non-public information.
 Compliance with the regulations relating to KYC and Money Laundering.
 Protect the personal privacy and the confidentiality about the information of the staff
members and the customers.
 Maintaining business relationships and indulging in fair competition.
 Co-ordination with the federal, the state governments, and various regulators.
 Maintaining accurate company records and adhering with the reporting requirements.
 The media communications on the behalf of the organisation would only be made by
the person authorised to do so. Accordingly, individuals must be careful about their
behaviour, comments or activities in the social domain, so that it does not paramount
to be done on the behalf of the organisation unless specifically provided to do so.
 The employees must follow general behaviour guidelines with respect to the property
of the organisation, information technology systems, dress code, smoking, littering,
consuming alcohol, health and safety rules and more.
Enforcement
The enforcement of the code of conduct is mandatory on an ongoing basis and the board is
granted the powers to take the necessary action in respect to the violations if any.
Inappropriate or the unethical behaviour may result in the compromising of the bank’s

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reputation. The exploitation of the authority and the position directly or indirectly to the
benefit of self or relatives or any acquaintances would be taken seriously. Hence, the
employees, officers, managers, customers, suppliers and the third parties must immediately
report such issues to the following mentioned persons according to the procedure laid down
in the whistleblower protection section of the code of conduct.
The violation of the code or any of the guidelines mentioned therein would result in
disciplinary action and the employees would be liable to the one or more of the following
penalties with respect to the breach of the code of conduct.
o Warning
o Revision or withholding of the pay
o Withholding of promotion
o Reduction to the lower grade of employment
o Termination of service
o Recovery from the salary for the losses caused to the organisation due to negligence
or breach of the code of conduct and the related policies and guidelines.
Affirmation
All the departmental heads and the senior managers are required to affirm the compliance
with the code on an annual basis. The affirmation will be provided in the prescribed form on
the organisation's website.

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References
Appelbaum, S. H., Semerjian, G. and Mohan, K. (2012) Workplace bullying: consequences,
causes and controls (part two). Industrial and Commercial Training, 44(6), pp. 337-344.
Austlii. (2018) Sex Discrimination Act 1984. [online] Available from:
http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/sda1984209/index.html [Accessed on
17/08/18].
Australian Human Rights Commission. (2018) Workplace discrimination, harassment and
bullying. [online] Available from: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/employers/good-practice-
good-business-factsheets/workplace-discrimination-harassment-and-bullying [Accessed on
17/08/18].
Brown, A. J., Lewis, D., Moberly, R. and Vandekerckhove, W. eds., (2014) International
handbook on whistleblowing research. UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Commonwealth Bank. (2017) Annual Report. [online] Available from:
https://www.commbank.com.au/content/dam/commbank/about-us/shareholders/pdfs/annual-
reports/annual_report_2017_14_aug_2017.pdf [Accessed on 23/08/18].
Cox, M. and Knoth, J. (2017) Australia: 4 Examples of Workplace Discrimination - MDC
Legal. [online] Available from:
http://www.mondaq.com/australia/x/566138/employee+rights+labour+relations/
4+Examples+of+Workplace+Discrimination+MDC+Legal [Accessed on 18/08/18].
Cubbage, C. J., and Brooks, D. J. (2016) Corporate Security in the Asia-Pacific Region:
Crisis, Crime, Fraud, and Misconduct. United States: CRC Press.

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Disabled World. (2018) Australian Disability Discrimination Act Information. [online]
Available from: https://www.disabled-world.com/disability/australia/ [Accessed on
18/08/18].
Einarsen, S., Hoel, H., Zapf, D. and Cooper, C. (2010) Bullying and harassment in the
workplace: Developments in theory, research, and practice. United States: CRC Press.
Fair Work Commission. (2018) Anti-bullying. [online] Available from:
https://www.fwc.gov.au/disputes-at-work/anti-bullying [Accessed on 17/08/18].
Gaze, B., and Smith, B. (2016) Equality and Discrimination Law in Australia: An
Introduction. Australia: Cambridge University Press.
Loudon, R., McPhail, R. and Wilkinson, A. (2015) Introduction to Employment Relations.
Australia: Pearson Higher Education AU.
Reamer, F.G., 2013. Social work values and ethics. United States: Columbia University
Press.
Vickers, M. H. (2014) Towards reducing the harm: Workplace bullying as workplace
corruption—A critical review. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 26(2), pp. 95-
113.
Victorian Equal Opportunity & Human Rights Commission. (2018) Discrimination –
Workplace. [online] Available from: https://www.humanrightscommission.vic.gov.au/the-
workplace/workplace-discrimination [Accessed on 22/08/18].
Zgheib, P. W. ed., (2014) Business ethics and diversity in the modern workplace. United
States: IGI Global.

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