Greg Medcraft

On the case … Greg Medcraft, chairman of ASIC. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

The Commonwealth Bank has had its third run-in with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in the space of five months. The bank is a huge business and the problems have been in different parts of the organisation but it's not a good look.

Last week, the regulator accepted a court-enforceable undertaking from the bank following the regulator's concerns that a message sent to its internet banking customers was misleading.

The message sought customers' consent to receive invitations to increase credit card limits. New laws that come into effect from the middle of this year stop card issuers from sending unsolicited credit limit increase invitations to their customers unless the customer has consented.

Late last year, the bank sent messages to its internet banking customers notifying them of the changes to the law regarding such invitations. The bank asked customers to provide their consent to continue to receive the invitations and about 96,000 consented.

The bank said, among other things, that if customers did not consent, they would miss out on the opportunity to access extra funds.

In fact, under the changes to the law, customers can provide or withdraw their consent and can request a credit-limit increase from their financial institution at any time.

The ''consents'' will be rescinded and the bank must contact all the customers who ''consented'', correcting any misleading impression and informing them of their rights.

In January, the bank was in trouble with the regulator. This time it was because the CBA did not mention a $350 fee in the advertising of one of its home-loan products.

The bank argued it was complying with the law and denied any wrongdoing but nevertheless agreed to change its advertising in the future.

In October last year, the bank's financial planning arm, Commonwealth Financial Planning Limited, entered into an enforceable undertaking with the regulator. The regulator said at the same time that ''several'' former Commonwealth Financial Planning advisers were under investigation.

As part of the undertaking, the bank must review its processes. The three other big banks have not had this amount of trouble with the regulator. That prompts the question: what's going on at the bank?