Commonwealth Bank Pay Rates 2026: Branch & Call Centre Pay

The Commonwealth Bank employs around 48,000 people, and most non-executive staff — branch customer service, tellers, call-centre operators, processing and back-office roles — sit under the Commonwealth Bank Enterprise Agreement 2023 (approved October 2023). Its safety net underneath is the Banking, Finance and Insurance Award 2020 (MA000019).

The agreement sets rates above the award — the agreement document is the source for actual CBA pay bands. One date matters right now: the agreement passed its nominal expiry on 30 June 2026. It keeps operating until replaced, but this is the window where a replacement agreement gets negotiated and voted on. If you're at CBA, the numbers in the next agreement are being set now — the award figures below are the floor any deal must clear.

From 1 July 2026, the Banking, Finance and Insurance Award adult minimums are:

Source: Fair Work Commission modern awards pay database, rates operative from 1 July 2026 (annual figures are the FWC's own annualised equivalents). CBA agreement salaries sit above these — but if any salary offer or annualised arrangement prices out below the award for the hours actually worked, that's the line it has broken.

The award has a junior scale, applied to the relevant level's rate. On Level 1, from 1 July 2026:

• Under 17: 50% — $13.48/hr
• 17 years: 60% — $16.18/hr
• 18 years: 70% — $18.88/hr
• 19 years: 80% — $21.57/hr
• 20 years: 90% — $24.27/hr

In practice most bank juniors are school-based or entry-program hires; check the enterprise agreement first, because agreement rates for the same age brackets are typically higher.

CBA's contact centres run well beyond branch hours, and the award prices that. Shiftwork loadings under the award:

• Early morning shift: 112.5% of the base rate
• Afternoon shift: 120%
• Night shift: 130%

The enterprise agreement has its own spans, loadings and penalty structure that must leave you better off overall than this floor. If you work evenings or weekends in a contact centre and your payslip shows base rate only, pull out the agreement's hours-of-work clauses and check — flat "all-hours" rates are a recurring source of finance-sector underpayment remediation.

The finance sector's underpayment record is mostly about time, not rates:

• Unpaid overtime — logging in before opening, balancing after close, staying on after the queue clears. If it's expected, it's work time.
• Annualised salary reconciliation — salaried staff doing regular extra hours should see an annual true-up against what the award/agreement would have paid for those hours.
• Classification lag — acting in a higher-banded role (2IC, specialist lending) for sustained periods without the higher band's pay.
• Expired-agreement drift — with the 2023 agreement past nominal expiry, scheduled agreement increases have run out; the award floor above still rises each 1 July regardless.

Gather six months of payslips and your actual working hours (system login records help), and price the gap with our back-pay calculator. Raise it through your leader or HR Direct in writing; the FSU can act on agreement matters. Unresolved, it goes to the Fair Work Ombudsman on 13 13 94 — recovery reaches back six years.