MACQUARIE GROUP has no public plans to compensate an estimated 600 Storm Financial clients, despite evidence of failed systems in margin loans it made to retirees and pensioners.
Macquarie Group has maintained it has ''settled'' with its Storm clients.
But BusinessDay has been contacted by several people introduced to Macquarie Group margin loans who were sold out at loan-to-value ratios of 97 per cent - well above the maximum stated loan-to-value ratio of 80 per cent.
These former Storm clients have argued they were never contacted by Macquarie Group for a margin call as their shares plummeted last year.
Amid evidence of failures in its own margin lending business, Commonwealth Bank has promised to do the right thing by its Storm Financial clients.
Macquarie Group has made no commitments, and refused to answer questions yesterday about compensation or whether its margin loan systems had failed in relation to Storm Financial clients.
BusinessDay is aware in some instances Macquarie Group margin loans ended in what is known as ''negative equity'' - when the borrowers lost all their money and ended up owing Macquarie Group extra money.
There are also signs Macquarie, which is bound by a responsible lending clause in the bankers' code of conduct, paid little attention to Storm Financial clients' ability to repay the loan.
BusinessDay has spoken to a 65-year-old retiree from Bexley, Ian Jones, who was advanced a Macquarie margin loan against a mortgage he drew against his house, with almost no other form of income. He was sold out at a loan-to-value ratio of about 97 per cent.
Sharon Lisch, of Deception Bay, Queensland, said she was a retiree with four investment properties when she and her husband Erich first took out margin loans with Macquarie through Storm Financial.
She said their shares had been sold out at a loan-to-value ratio of 97 per cent, without any warning from Macquarie Group that the shares had passed through their maximum loan-to-value ratio.
Since then, she said, Macquarie Group had made no concessions for the situation she had found herself in. She said her parents, Robin and Cecily Herd, also found themselves in the same situation.
''Their way of settling was 'You will pay out our loan','' she said yesterday.
''No compassion or consideration was shown by Macquarie. We have never been given any form of reasonable hearing or explanation regarding any questions we have asked regarding the loan, why we were not notified of the margin call, and how and why the loan was granted in the first place.''
