Commonwealth Bank of Australia's CommInsure life insurance unit has been charged with 87 counts of unlawfully selling life insurance policies over the phone.
The maximum penalty for each of the charges is $21,250, or $1.8 million in total.
The charges, announced by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission on Friday, are the first criminal charges to flow from a royal banking royal commission case study.
ASIC alleges that CommInsure, through its agent, telemarketing firm Aegon Insights Australia, unlawfully sold the life insurance policies known as Simple Life between October and December 2014.
CommInsure provided customer contact details to Aegon from CBA's existing customer database, according to the corporate watchdog.
ASIC alleges that the calls were unsolicited, and didn't comply with all of the hawking exceptions in the law, ASIC said.
The Commonwealth director of public prosecutions is prosecuting the case.
Commonwealth Bank said in a news release that the telephone sales of the Simple Life product ceased at the end of 2014, and Comminsure reported breaches of the anti-hawking provisions to ASIC.
