The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) has agreed to pay A$3m ($2.3m) to resolve charges of failing to deliver customers annual reviews of their investments.
The decision follows a probe by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), which revealed that the bank did not offer documented reviews to over 10,000 Prime Access customers who paid for them. The breaches took place between 2006 and 2013.
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The investigation further found that the bank did not have sufficient systems and processes for Prime Access customers.
ANZ also failed to report the matter until 2013 even after being aware of the issue from 2008, ASIC said.
ASIC deputy chair Peter Kell said: “Our report into fees for no service in October 2016 identified the major financial institutions’ systemic failures in this area, which required affected customers to be fairly compensated and to be provided with the services that they have paid for.”
The bank has now agreed to an enforced undertaking. It said that it will appoint an independent expert to ensure it has delivered documented reviews since 2014 and made required changes to systems and processes.
ANZ group executive wealth Australia Alexis George said: “We acknowledge we did not meet customers’ expectations by not providing them the services we promised. We have since introduced measures to prevent this from happening again and have largely completed making remediation payments to impacted clients.”
