In an opinion piece published in the Australian Financial Review last month, journalist Jonathan Shapiro details the nature of the cultural problems facing ANZ, informed by confidential conversations with a number of people in and around the bank.
Many of the problems outlined in the article relate to the bank's speak-up culture. "When faced with a problem, senior employees within the markets division have tended to ignore it, hoping it goes away," Shapiro writes. "Unsurprisingly, these issues have not disappeared but worsened." Frequently, those who raised concerns faced blowback internally, Shapiro explains, while "problematic" employees were frequently rewarded and promoted.
ANZ disagrees with this characterization. "ANZ promotes a strong 'speak-up' culture," a spokesman said. “Where staff see something that does not look right, we strongly encourage them to speak up and report it. Indeed, staff from our markets business have spoken up, and individuals have left the organisation as a consequence.”
The bank's culture also permitted traders to pursue their own interests over those of their clients and the bank, according to clients and former employees interviewed by the AFR. "They have a reputation for making money not from the market but from the franchise – either scalping off corporate clients, funds or even the bank – to benefit their own accounts," Shapiro writes.
The heightened scrutiny on ANZ's culture follows a high-profile bond trading scandal and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority's decision to increase the bank's operational risk capital add-on to $750 million, up from $500 million, in August last year due to persistent non-financial risk management issues. In response, ANZ hired Oliver Wyman to review the culture of its markets division and brought on two law firms to investigate allegations of misconduct.
Some have called for the bank to publish the Oliver Wyman report publically. However, ANZ Chairman Paul O’Sullivan has promised only to provide regulators with the full report, stating that investors would receive a summary of its findings. This is reminiscent of the bank's response to Australia's landmark Hayne Royal Commission, when it was the only big-four bank not to release a self-assessment report to the public. It is of note that ANZ is also the only of the big-four banks for which the operational risk capital add-on, put in place following the Royal Commission, has not been reduced or removed.
Meanwhile, the pile of problems facing the bank continues to grow. In December, the Australian reported that the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) was weighing legal action against ANZ over allegations that it charged fees to the accounts of dead customers and failed to resolve system deficiencies in a timely manner.
Earlier last month, ANZ announced that CEO Shayne Elliott would step down in July 2025 after nine years at the helm. Nuno Matos, who was previously CEO of Wealth and Personal Banking at HSBC, will serve as Elliott's replacement. Perhaps notably, HSBC is currently facing its own litigation from ASIC for alleged "widespread and systemic" failures to protect customers who were scammed out of millions of dollars.
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