The chief executive of Australia's biggest bank, the Commonwealth, will retire, the company said Monday, amid pressure from regulators over alleged breaches of money laundering and terrorism financing laws.

The bank's chair Catherine Livingstone said in a statement to the stock exchange that Ian Narev "will retire by the end of the 2018 financial year".

Narev faced calls to step down last week after the financial intelligence agency AUSTRAC launched a civil action against the bank alleging "serious and systemic non-compliance" of the laws more than 53,000 times.

Source: AFP