BIPARTISAN support to ban banks inside ACT schools over a savings program was voted unanimously in favour of ending a 90-year tradition after it was revealed that a 93 per cent market share in Australia ensured the Commonwealth Bank has earned more than $10 billion.

As of the end of June, the Dollarmites Club that has been hugely popular with one of the four big banks will no longer be allowed into classrooms to educate public school students.

Every member inside the ACT Legislative Assembly voted to support a motion proposed on Wednesday from the Greens that hold six of the 16 seats that forms the new government with the Labor majority.

It comes after the Australian Securities and Investments Commission said the results that were released in December last year in its anticipated report into school banking program that took two years to investigate were “damning”.

The report found the program was a “key strategic tools by banks and financial institutions to market their products to young children”.

ASIC added that the providers “did not adequately disclose that school banking programs linked to a broader acquisition strategy”.

Part of the “persuasive” advertising strategies from banks was to engage participants with their brand that extended to the Commonwealth Bank handing out branded plastic toys to children for their loyalty.

The ASIC investigation delivered four findings that it found from the Commonwealth Bank’s dealings with schools.

The bank was unable to demonstrate it improved the education of students, that children are vulnerable to sophisticated marketing tactics, the program incentivised schools to participate for monetary rewards and the program failed to effectively disclose that its objective was customer acquisition.

The Commonwealth Bank has since said in a statement: “While we acknowledge some of the findings, we do not believe they are entirely consistent with international research or our own. We do not agree with the overall assessment of the school banking programs.”

The early program ran for 60 years before the Commonwealth Bank was later privatised under former federal treasurer Paul Keating, but the residual effects of Dollarmite Club bank accounts dating back to 1931 still pocketed $10 billion for the financial giant.

A Choice survey found that 47 per cent of school students opened a Commonwealth Bank from the program and more than one third of them have remained loyal customers, which has since accounted for more than 3.5 million Australians.

Australia’s leading consumer advocacy group handed out its 2018 Choice Shonky award to the Commonwealth Bank for their Dollarmite programs over “employing subversive sales tactics under the guise of youth education as a particularly pernicious act”.

ACT Greens spokesperson on education, Johnathan Davis, was equally damning on the unethical procedures of banks, including the Commonwealth, that associated with schools under a thinly-veiled premise of education to benefit primary-age students.

“Banks and financial institutions make payments to schools to encourage them to get students to participate in school banking programs and in return they use school resources and much needed school volunteers to get their products to students,” Mr Davis said in the Legislative Assembly.

The member for Brindabella said it was a reminder that corporations have no place in the public education system to educate on financial literacy.

The Moneysmart program, instigated from the federal government, has developed financial resources that are now “far more comprehensive and up-to-date compared the outdated programs from financial institutions”.

“All children, should get high-quality, independent financial literacy from their school, from their parents and from their communities,” Mr Davis added, “and they are already doing so without the need of corporate involvement in our schools.”

As a result of the ASIC investigation, Bendigo Bank, South West Credit Union and IMB all voluntarily ended their smaller school banking programs midway through last year.

That motivated the Victorian government to remove the program entirely in that state’s schools immediately after the report was released and before the 2021 school year began.

“The fact that banks and financial institutions prey on the under-funding of public schools facilities to shore up this dodgy business is deeply unethical,” Mr Davis said.

The ACT Council of Parents and Citizens Association operated on $20,000 from the banks – or about $2000 for each participating school – but would be compensated for the loss of revenue from the elimination of the banking program through government funding.

Mr Davis called on the ACT government to “divest our schools from grubby and, ironically, educationally worthless commercial banking programs”.

While the Canberra Liberals supported the push to end the stronghold of the banks on education in the territory, the Opposition spokesperson for education Jeremy Hanson took umbrage at the language of calling banks a “dodgy business” and “grubby”.

“That’s an unnecessary slur and I don’t think it adds to the debate,” Mr Hanson said on the assembly floor.

He also called on the coalition government to prepare to work closely with the opposition benches for a more transitional way to abolish the program.

The P&C council has allegedly told Mr Hanson there is “no unanimous view one way or another” on removing the programs in ACT public schools.

An amendment to the motion requested the sanction be delayed six months and not be scrapped until the end of the financial year to ensure schools found an alternate program.

“This has been running since 1931, so I don’t think there is a rush,” Mr Hanson said.

But it was voted down along party lines after an acid-tongued retort from Mr Davis.

“To say, forget that, rip it up and start all over again, midway through a school year, I don’t think is helpful,” Mr Hanson said.

“I don’t know if the schools are ready to come up with another program.”