“Kiwibank has fully co-operated with the Commerce Commission’s investigation and carried out a remediation programme for affected customers,” a bank spokesman said.
“All remediations will be completed by the end of this year, if not complete already,” he added.
“Our priority throughout this process has been to make things right for our customers and we are disappointed that we have let some of our customers down with these historic issues.”
Commerce Commission deputy chair Anne Callinan said the charges were serious and stemmed from multiple errors in Kiwibank’s manual and electronic systems which resulted in Kiwibank misrepresenting what customers owed.
”In the commission’s view these are longstanding, systemic breaches of the Fair Trading Act some of which date back to Kiwibank’s inception in 2002,” Callinan added.
But the commission’s charges relate specifically to the overcharges from 2019 onwards.
Kiwibank had incorrectly charged more than 36,000 customers, the Commission added.
A commission spokeswoman told the Herald 21 charges were filed at the Auckland District Court under the Fair Trading Act.
All the charges were filed under sections 13, which relates to false or misleading representations, and another section of the act which covered relevant fines.
A court date was not yet set.
