The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) share price is down 1.5% in late afternoon trading. This comes as the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) is also slipping, down 0.6%.
With Commonwealth Bank shares likely to close for a loss today, Wednesday marks the only day this week where the share price gained, closing up 0.9%. At the time of writing that puts the Commonwealth Bank share price down 1.8% over the past 5 days.
At the current price of $84.51 per share, shareholders are still up 39% for the past 12 months. And those figures don't include dividends. Commonwealth Bank pays an annual dividend yield of 2.9%, fully franked.
Below we take a look at some of this week's news that could impact Commonwealth Bank shares.
Will government credit rules get a revamp?
Commonwealth Bank has thrown its support in with the other big banks in favour of revamping the government's current responsible lending laws. The existing legislation was passed in 2009 following the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States, which spawned the GFC.
The Senate has delayed its vote on repealing the law, intended to protect consumers from overly risky lending, until June.
While it's unclear if amending the responsible lending law would have a direct impact on the Commonwealth Bank share price, it's telling that all the big banks are in favour of repealing the legislation.
Commonwealth Bank enters the BNPL space
The buy now, pay later (BNPL) space just got a lot more crowded.
Yesterday, Commonwealth Bank said it intends to launch its own BNPL service to its customers by mid-year. Which could spell bad news for the Afterpay Ltd (ASX: APT) share price.
The service will be offered through any merchants who accept credit or debit card payments, enabling people to pay off their purchases (up to $1,000) in instalments, similar to other BNPL offerings. Unlike Afterpay and most other existing ASX BNPL shares, the Commonwealth Bank model will not charge any additional fees to merchants above what they charge for debit or credit card payment.
How the new BNPL service will impact the Commonwealth Bank share price remains to be seen.
