Bendigo and Adelaide Bank has hit back at claims it is attempting to black-list clients over Great Southern.
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank has denied it has breached debt collector guidelines by contacting Great Southern investors over unpaid loans.
Last week, legal firm Macpherson and Kelly claimed the bank breached conditions of the debt collector guidelines by directly contacting investors involved in the legal firm's class action against the bank.
"Bendigo and Adelaide Bank believe and would argue very strongly that it has complied with all its obligations on the debt collector guidelines," Bendigo and Adelaide Bank spokesperson Will Rayner said.
"We will be responding as such to ASIC."
Rayner would not be drawn on whether the corporate regulator has been in contact with the banking group.
"We are in constant communication with the regulator but we wouldn't comment on any individual cases," he said.
Macpherson and Kelly has lodged a number of complaints to ASIC, the privacy commissioner and the Financial Ombudsman Service over the bank's conduct.
As part of its class action, Macpherson and Kelly has advised its close to 2000 clients to stop making repayments on their loans with Bendigo and Adelaide Bank.
Lawyers representing investors in the managed investment scheme (MIS) of collapsed agribusiness company Great Southern Ltd have filed an application to prevent Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Ltd from listing investors' defaults with any credit reporting agencies.
A lawyer from ERA Legal, Daren Anderson told Business Spectator that the application to the Supreme Court of New South Wales is seeking to restrain Bendigo from exposing the identities of investors who have been unable to repay thousands of dollars in loans used to acquire interests in the now insolvent managed investment group.
The move by the legal firm, which represents 273 investors in Great Southern, comes after Bendigo recently said it would list the investors' defaults with credit reporting agencies.
In August, the regional lender said that it had a $550 million exposure to borrowers in the managed investment schemes of the collapsed plantation company, with an average exposure of less than $70,000 per borrower.
The bank also said the Great Southern portfolio accounted for less than 1.5 per cent of its asset base.
Last week, Bendigo Bank's head of investor relations, Will Rayner told media that the bank would continue to press its case for payment of outstanding money, with steps taken to bring some Great Southern investors before credit rating agency Veda Advantage.
Great Southern went into administration on May 16, and on May 18 McGrathNicol was appointed receiver. The administrator's powers are subject to the powers of the receiver.
At the time that the administrator was appointed, the Great Southern group comprised a parent company and 34 subsidiaries and employed more than 400 people nationally.
The group had raised more than $2.2 billion in managed investment scheme (MIS) sales and managed MIS assets for more than 52,000 investors.
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