Report on the Commonwealth Bank of Australia: Financial Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA). It begins with a background of the bank, tracing its history and market position, followed by a SWOT analysis to identify its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The report delves into the bank's ethical considerations, values, and social responsibilities, highlighting its corporate communication and public relations strategies. It also provides recommendations for improvement, such as market expansion and enhanced social media presence. Finally, the report discusses areas for future study, including the investigation of anti-money laundering breaches and the importance of information-backed strategies. The analysis uses various academic sources to support its findings and concludes with the author's personal reflection on the impact of the research on their career aspirations.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia
STUDENT’S NAME
CODE + COURSE NAME
PROFESSOR’S NAME
UNIVERSITY NAME
CITY, STATE
DATE

Background of Commonwealth Bank of Australia
 The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is one of the largest banks in Australia and the
neighboring region. The bank was formed in 1911 by the Australian government under the
common wealth act. Since the year 1920 up to 1960 the bank acted as Australia’s central bank.
 The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has maintained its market share over the extended
period of time it has been functioning. The bank has also managed to keep a reputable brand
name which in turn attracts more potential customers and clients (Willcocks & Reynolds, 2015,
P.9).
 The analysis tool will provide the reader with information on the bank’s strength, weakness,
opportunity and threats. The paper also intends to delve into the financial habits and strategies
the Commonwealth Bank of Australia has put in place. After an analysis the paper will provide
recommendations on how the largest private bank in the Australia can improve and become
more effective.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia SWOT Analysis
 The SWOT analysis is a business analysis tool that used to analyze the strength,
weakness, opportunities and threats that a company faces.
 A SWOT analysis on the bank will provide a better understanding of the
Commonwealth Bank of Australia as well as the sectors it is performing excellent
and sections that need improvement upon.
 One must understand SWOT is short names for four words which are
 Strength
 Weakness
 Opportunity
 Threat

Ethics, Values and Social Responsibilities
 Most businesses today have utilized to great success an approach that is social based in order
to achieve a workable relationship with both their customers and employees.
 In order to achieve the ideal working environment, businesses have allocated a major portion
of their finances to ensure that they are able to emulate good values and mirror the society in
which they operate in.
 This approach is mostly constituted with Ethics, values and social responsibilities. Ethics is the
ability of a business to identify injustice in a society and trying to fight them.
 Values are the behavioral characteristics that are portrayed by businesses which are beneficial
to society (Grace & Cohen, 2015, P.29).
 Social Responsibility is the approach taken by businesses to ensure that they give back to the
community in terms of social, economic and environmental development which ensures that
all parties involved benefit (Hugman & Carter, 2016, P.44).
 The Commonwealth Bank as any other successful business has over the years been involved
in this approach which has proven mostly beneficial. Programs such as the Start Smart
initiative has re enforced the bank’s commitment to the betterment of their general society.

Corporate Communication and Public Relations
 Public relations and corporate communications is a very critical branch in business (Gregory
2016, P.43).
 A bad image is very detrimental to a business while a good image is seed as a contributing
factor of success to a business.
 It is very important that a business maintains a good image in order to achieve its goals
(Theaker, 2016, P. 17).
 The commonwealth bank has realized the importance of public relations and has
formulated strategies to ensure that they maintain a good relation with the public.
 Strategies such as the setting up of communication guidelines between members of the
bank and shareholders have aided members of the market and shareholders to access
information about the bank in a timely and efficient manner (Argenti, 2015, P.22).
 Shareholders and other parties are also able to subscribe to an email alert system that
notifies them of major happenings in the bank’s activities.

Recommendations
 In this section of the study paper the author will make suggestions on ways the Commonwealth Bank of
Australia can improve in order to perform more optimally than they currently are.
 The study paper recommends that the Commonwealth Bank of Australia should invest into expanding its
market into Europe, the United States of America and other regions.
 Although the commonwealth bank’s public relations strategies are up to date and efficient they are also
lagging behind in new venues to relate with the public such as the social media platform which they do not
have a major presence, this has hindered much of their effort in public relations as they have not exploited an
opportunity created by a society that is more digital and socially aware.
 The bank should also try connecting these two branches, public relations and social responsibility, because
they are dependent on each other and a successful campaign of one leads to the improvement of the other.
 The bank should ensure that enough personnel are allocated to this sector which will ensure that every
project they embark on will at end prove successful.
 It is also recommended that the institution involves the society while rolling out programs that are of influence
to the society, this will involve participation of various levels of society in the decision making process while
picking a program and also involve them in the implementation of the picked program to ensure inclusivity.

Future Study and Career
 The financial services sector is wide and covers many areas and topics hence this
research paper was not able to cover all the factors about the Commonwealth Bank of
Australia. There is thus a large room for further research into the topic.
 The Commonwealth Bank of Australia was found to have committed over 53,000 breaches
of anti-money laundering and terrorism funding regulations despite being a reputable
bank.
 This observation should be investigated further in future studies in order to clearly identify
the effects of the breaches of anti-money laundering and terrorism funding regulations in
detail.
 The research conducted shows that banks that make use of information to make informed
strategies and then follow through in their implementation succeed and grow.
 This has inspired me to make sure that any decision and strategy I make in my career
should be backed up with credible information to ensure my career reaches its maximum
limits.

References
 Adams, M. A., Borsellino, G., & Young, A. (2017). Regulating conduct of financial institutions in Australia: is culture the new frontier of
regulation?. Journal of International Banking Law and Regulation, 32(3), 86-92.
 Argenti, P.A., 2015. Corporate communication. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
 Authority, A. P. R. (2018). Prudential Inquiry into the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) Final Report. Australian Prudential Regulation
Authority, Sydney, April.
 Burgh-Woodman, H., Bressan, A., & Torrisi, A. (2017). An Evaluation of the State of the CSR Field in Australia: Perspectives from the
Banking and Mining Sectors. In Comparative Perspectives on Global Corporate Social Responsibility (pp. 138-164). IGI Global.
 Conti-Brown, P., & Lastra, R. M. (Eds.). (2018). Research Handbook on Central Banking. Edward Elgar Publishing.
 Cornish, S. (2016). MONETARY TARGETING IN AUSTRALIA. Milton Friedman: Contributions to Economics and Public Policy, 334.
 Cranston, R. (2018). Principles of banking law. Oxford University Press.
 Doorley, J. and Garcia, H.F., 2015. Reputation management: The key to successful public relations and corporate communication.
Routledge.
 Furnham, A. and Gunter, B., 2015. Corporate Assessment (Routledge Revivals): Auditing a Company's Personality. Routledge.
 Grace, D. and Cohen, S., 2015. Business ethics.
 Gregory, A., 2016. Public relations and management. In The public relations handbook (pp. 76-100). Routledge.
 Gürel, E., & Tat, M. (2017). SWOT ANALYSIS: A THEORETICAL REVIEW. Journal of International Social Research, 10(51).
 Hugman, R. and Carter, J. eds., 2016. Rethinking values and ethics in social work. Macmillan International Higher Education.
 Kang, K., Burdon, S. and Mooney, G., 2019. Innovation Cultural Factors in Australian Business Environment: IT Organizations in Australia.
In Handbook of Research on Contemporary Approaches in Management and Organizational Strategy (pp. 129-145). IGI Global.
 Lerbinger, O., 2018. Corporate Communication: An International and Management Perspective. Wiley-Blackwell.