Bank of Queensland Refunds Customers over $34.5 million due to errors

BANK of Queensland is refunding $34.5 million to customers after uncovering more problems with how interest rates and fees were applied. The payouts come on top of $12 million in refunds BoQ made from last year after finding problems with mortgage offset accounts.

BoQ, which has been under new management, said the latest problems with customer money had been caused by issues, including overly complex products that required too many manual steps to process.

It had been identified in a review and was frustrating, BoQ said.

On top of the refunds, BoQ has also incurred $11.5 million in costs to repair the problems.

BoQ said it would treat the items as one off costs and it remained on track to post pre-tax earnings near the top of analyst guidance of $339 million to $368 million.

That follows a shock loss in 2012, the first for an Australian bank in 20 years.

BoQ said it was in track to meet most internal targets, except for growth in the lending book to mums and dads.

Problems with customer accounts are not unknown in financial services industries - it was revealed earlier this year Suncorp would pay $23 million in refunds for problems with products including insurance.