The firm appeared before Australia's banking Royal Commission, which is investigating misconduct in the financial planning sector.

Jack Regan, AMP’s head of advice and New Zealand was questioned on Tuesday as the commission looked at the business’s practice of charging for financial planning services clients did not have access to.

Regan apologised to customers, admitting the company made untrue statements to the regulator.

The enquiry heard it had made a deliberate decision to continue to charge “orphan” clients financial advice fees for three months when they went into a central pool, often after their advisers retired if no buyer could be found for the book.

In that time they received no advice services and AMP was told the move was probably unlawful.

AMP had an administrative call centre but it could not offer any financial advice.

Regan was asked how he became aware of the “fee for no service” problem when he took over the financial planning arm.

“It was a series of emails that were concerning in relation to the knowledge of approving the continuation of fees,” he said. “There were emails related to legal advice about whether fees should continue to be charged if no service was provided.”

Regan said the legal advice was that there was no lawful basis for implementing the 90-day exception.

The enquiry heard AMP had misled the corporate regulator at least 20 times – although at one point Regan lost count of that number.

“It’s clear that we preferenced shareholders in that exchange at the expense of customers,” he told the inquiry.

He said it was “unacceptable”. "It starts with culture ... culture is the invisible hand that ensures people are making the right decisions.”