The Finance Sector Union (FSU) has attacked bonus payments made to Commonwealth Bank senior executives despite their failure to meet certain performance targets.

Executives failed to meet targets for customer satisfaction, but the bank's board exercised its discretion to award $8.5 million in bonuses linked to the measure, the union says.

CBA chairman David Turner told shareholders at the bank's annual general meeting in Brisbane yesterday that the bonuses were paid because the satisfaction result was an anomaly.

But FSU national secretary Leon Carter says it is a "double standard", as the bank's lower-paid workers are not excused from meeting their performance targets.

"If they don't make that target, they are put on performance counselling and often they're told to leave the bank," Mr Carter said.

"So we cannot in any way understand how that same organisation can say to their senior executives 'you haven't met your target, but you know what, it doesn't matter'."

Last November the bank decided to hike interest rates by nearly double the Reserve Bank's 25-basis-point rise in the official cash rate.