What a night of nights it must have been last May: the music, the champagne, the chatter and laughter, the bursts of applause. See the merry throng of gentlemen elegant in best black tie, the ladies soignee in satins and silks, a soft light sparkling on silver and pearls, on diamonds and gold.

We are at Ivy on George Street - ''a sophisticated urban playground for grown-ups'' - and it's the 23rd annual Australian Banking & Finance Awards, 2013. The Oscars, the Grammys, the Logies for the banking business. How thrilling. And the winner of the hotly contested, highly coveted award for Australian Financial Institution of the Year (Major Banks)? Come on down, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia! Lord knows who chooses these things, or what the criteria might be. It seems unlikely, though, that anyone consulted the 725 and more clients of the CBA who lost hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of dodgy practices of financial planners at the bank over the years since 2007.

This is - or should be - one of the great banking scandals of our time. In a nutshell, at least seven CBA advisers shoved their customers into disastrously high-risk investments without their knowledge or understanding. All the while, of course, charging humungous fees for doing so.

Many of those dudded were elderly or infirm. Mervyn Blanch, aged 81, saw the value of his life savings with the CBA nosedive from $260,000 to just $92,000. He and his wife were forced onto the cold charity of Centrelink. Mrs Patricia Babbage, a widow and the mother-in-law of the federal shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey, lost more than half her investment of $200,000 even as she was dealing with the trauma of bowel cancer. There are hundreds of similar stories.

The kingpin in this outrage was a planner named Don Nguyen, a CBA hotshot who has since been banned from the industry for seven years. Another was a spiv named Ricky Gillespie, who forged clients' signatures and is now out for life, although he denies any wrongdoing and is appealing. Nobody, though, has been to jail.

We know much of this from a handful of brave whistleblowers at the bank who, aghast at what was happening, went first to the finance industry watchdog ASIC, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, and then to their bosses. Gradually, the truth began to emerge. So all's well that ends well, you might think.

But no. It's just the start. The Commonwealth Bank writhed and wriggled, pulling every trick in the book to get out from under its responsibilities. Distressed clients were fobbed off with evasions and, at times, outright lies. Eventually, derisory amounts of compensation were offered. ASIC - famously about as useful as a fish on a bicycle - dithered and sat on its hands from October 2008 until March 2010, despite having been given chapter and verse by the whistleblowers.

The Fairfax Media business writer Adele Ferguson has been reporting this scandal for months, with admirable clarity and resolve. On Thursday there was a result. The Senate agreed to run an inquiry into the fraud and forgery at the CBA and the hand-wringing indolence at ASIC.

Already, of course, the arse-covering has started. The CBA wrote to the Herald claiming that ''everything we do is focused on securing and enhancing our customers' financial wellbeing''. Bollocks. And ASIC's deputy chairman, Peter Kell, stoutly maintains that his outfit ''took serious enforcement action''. Codswallop.

This affair has a long way to run. For the moment, the Commonwealth Bank might like to hand back its glittering prize.

Mike Carlton