Royal Bank Inquiry Commission: Shayne Elliott recognizes that ANZ has relied on temporary solutions



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ANZ has exceeded many deadlines to compensate thousands of customers for whom fees have been charged incorrectly. Executive Director Shayne Elliott blamed some of her problems on her technological systems.

Complex management structures have resulted in the application of temporary solutions to serious problems, which has delayed ANZ's ability to identify wrongdoings and reimburse customers, Elliott said on Tuesday. royal commission.

After ANZ announced to the commission that various patrimonial customers facing excessive fees would be reimbursed in July this year, Elliott announced Wednesday that this had been delayed, ANZ not wishing to centralize the process given the sale of its heritage unit. Plans to compensate banking customers for processing errors initially planned for December have also been postponed until next April.

"Our limitations so far are related to the complexity that we have integrated into our business over time.Once, our fault should not have happened, but that's what we did We are improving in this regard.In the future, with better processes and simpler banking, time scales will drop significantly, "said Elliott.

ANZ's explanation regarding "processing errors" led Commissioner Kenneth Hayne to find that he had been "struck both by the number and size of the industry, by alleged errors of treatment or administrative errors ".

Publicity

He suggested that banks do more to find out when it comes to product design, something that Mr. Elliott agreed with.

Before discussing in-depth reforms of his compensation policy, the head of the ANZ said the staff had become "too focused on revenues".

"The people who generated good income were perceived as doing a good job, and we paid less attention to how they got these results," he said.

ANZ was also hampered by its "decentralization", in which many different divisions prevented employees from seeing things under the microscope when mistakes were made and meant that senior management was unaware of certain problems when they arose.

Rowena Orr, QC, at the request of the lead counsel, if ANZ is doing enough to resolve the clients' problems, Mr. Elliott said "patently not" and that the bank was not sufficiently able to "connect the dots".

"When you use a Confederate business model, these things, when mistakes happen, when mistakes happen, it's less likely that they will accelerate," Elliott said.

"And is it more likely that a Band-aid solution will be applied?" Mr. Orr asked.

"Yes," replied Elliott.

Four years for identity violations

The commission investigated ANZ's bad record of reporting offenses, which the regulator revealed to be the worst of the big four banks. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission estimated that it took an average of 1517 days for ANZ – or four years – to identify a violation and 213 additional days to report it.

"Well, I mean, it's clearly unacceptable and it's not correct," he said about the delays. When asked how long it would take ANZ to identify a violation, Mr. Elliott said it was difficult to quantify, but "significantly less than 1,500 days".

It eventually turned out that a new depollution team within the retail bank wanted the compensation to be paid within three months of the case's identification, but Mr. Elliott refused to engage in this period.

An internal ANZ document prepared in January of this year was presented to the commission. According to her, resolving customer issues was perceived as a "distraction, at the expense of revenue generated, and therefore not always the highest priority".

ASIC reported in its September report on deficiencies in the reporting of offenses. Mr. Elliott downplayed it, saying that it was not an "official" document, although he admitted that it could reflect the Opinion of some staff members.

He agreed that the bank took 213 days to identify the problem and to point out that the breach was "far superior to what it should or should be". Pursuant to Article 912D of the Companies Act, ANZ is required to report these infringements within 10 days.

However, like Westpac leader Brian Hartzer last week, he asked ASIC to elaborate on what was a "significant" problem, which he said would help banks know what to report.

Two million accounts

Mr. Elliott was asked how many accounts had been affected by processing errors that resulted in a wrong interest rate or the lack of discounts, and how much repayments were expected.

"Nearly two million, many of which will be double counted," said Elliott. He added that "hundreds of millions of dollars" had been repaid to customers and that the bank had made a provision of $ 374 million for additional payments.

He revealed that the "responsible banking team" of 165 people – who manages the refurbishment operations – is increased by 50 people and "without resource restrictions".

The investigation also investigated the school of Colin Neave, the former Commonwealth mediator, who is now ANZ's "client advisor on client equity". Mr. Neave reviewed all of the ANZ case studies reviewed by the Royal Commission to determine if the bank's response is sufficient, work that will be completed early in the new year.

Ms. Orr questioned her independence. "He's an employee of the company, so you know, he's not totally independent, we try to make him as independent as possible, but it's not without challenges, obviously." said Elliott.

Mr. Neave's terms of employment – a non-renewable three-year contract under which he receives only a fixed salary – were designed to make him as independent as possible.

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