According to the Sina US Stock News on the 13th, Beijing time, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) said on Friday that it will pay 25 million Australian dollars (about 17 million US dollars) of salary arrears to current and former employees. The bank found that these employees were underpaid in a review, and its CEO apologized for “past mistakes.”

Commonwealth Bank of Australia said in a statement: “To date, the CBA has notified or reimbursed approximately 41,000 current and former employees totaling $13.2 million in salary arrears plus interest, and will begin paying another 14.9 million Australian dollars of salary arrears plus interest next week.” The remaining amount will be paid after the review has been completed during the current financial year.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia CEO Matt Comyn (Matt Comyn) said, “It's unacceptable that some of us aren't being treated the right way. This shouldn't have happened, and I apologize to those who have been wrongly influenced in the past.”

The bank became the latest Australian company to admit that it has underpaid employees' wages. Previously, Woolworths, operator of the country's largest grocery chain, said in October that it had underpaid thousands of supermarket workers over the years and would repay 300 million Australian dollars.

Other cases of underpayment of employees' wages involved retail group Wesfarmers, Super Retail Group, and jeweler Michael Hill International Ltd.