The Coalition government has refused to hold a royal commission into the Commonwealth Bank of Australia as part of its response to a landmark Senate inquiry.

The inquiry, which spanned 12 months and attracted a record number of submissions, scrutinised the performance of the corporate regulator in the wake of revelations by a whistleblower of misconduct and fraud in CBA's financial planning arm.

"Tens if not hundreds of thousands of victims are suffering and they have done so for decades, but this government refuses to act.": CBA whistleblower Jeff Morris. Credit:Rob Homer

Thousands of people lost their life savings as a result of the allegedly bad advice given to them by planners at the country's biggest bank.

The government will on Friday release its response to some of the inquiry's 61 recommendations, many of which aimed to address failures within the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) which took 16 months to act on warnings of the misconduct and cover-up within CBA.