The major bank faces penalties of $240 million tied to four separate proceedings spanning misconduct across its Institutional and Retail divisions.
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) has agreed to pay a penalty of $240 million covering four different investigations into the bank and linked to misconduct over several years.
The penalties, which are subject to consideration and approval by the Federal Court, include $125 million for institutional and markets matters, including a record $80 million penalty for unconscionable conduct, and $115 million in total penalties for three retail matters.
Under the agreement, ANZ is subject to penalties related to four matters, including:
“Unconscionable conduct” when managing government bond deal
When working on a $14 billion deal with the Australian Government's sovereign debt management agency, the Australian Office of Financial Management (AOFM), ANZ reportedly incorrectly reported its bond trading data, overstating volumes by tens of billions of dollars over almost two years.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) alleged that, instead of trading gradually throughout the day to limit market impact, ANZ sold a significant volume of 10-year Australian bond futures around the time of pricing, which placed undue downward price pressure on the bond price.
The regulator said that when the government asked what happened, ANZ’s reports were misleading or deceptive, and that it "misled the government about its trading turnover for nearly two years".
ANZ has admitted to acting unconscionably and misleading the government. It also admitted to failing to meet its obligations as an Australian financial services licensee.
Failing to respond to customer hardship notices
The allegations focus on 488 customers who submitted financial hardship notices to the bank between May 2022 and September 2024, including hardship in relation to unemployment, serious medical issues, bereavement and family violence.
In some cases, it took ANZ over two years to respond and resulted in ANZ taking action - including issuing default and demand notices - without having responded to the customer's hardship notices.
ASIC alleges that ANZ also failed to have proper hardship processes in place.
ANZ has completed a remediation program for affected customers, which has included customer payments totalling $92,687 and corrections to customer credit reports.
Bonus interest issues
ASIC said ANZ made false and misleading statements about its savings interest rates and failed to pay the promised interest rate to tens of thousands of customers.
Between July 2013 and January 2024, ANZ promoted offers on its website to pay introductory bonus interest to customers who opened certain new accounts. However, due to process deficiencies in ANZ’s systems, the bonus interest was not always applied.
ANZ has remediated 194,487 accounts as a result of the issue.
Separately, between August 2024 and March 2025, ANZ promoted on its website base variable and bonus fixed introductory interest rates for certain accounts, which were inaccurate. This issue impacted 56,703 customers. ANZ has said it intends to remediate these customers.
Deceased estates
ANZ failed to refund fees charged to dead customers and breached obligations concerning deceased estates between July 2019 and June 2023, according to ASIC.
Failures were due to its systems and processes not being able to identify which fees should be waived and/or refunded, and whether any fees charged after a customer's death had been waived or refunded, ASIC added. The issue took over a year to resolve.
The total number of affected customers is not known. However, over 18,900 customer accounts were remediated $3.8 million by ANZ for fees it did not intend to charge and additional costs arising from delays, with over 9,000 people also contacted to apologise for delays they experienced.
ANZ slapped with record fine
During a press conference held on Monday, ASIC chair Joe Longo said ANZ has a "history of non-compliance in markets matters, for misconduct in foreign exchange, continuous disclosure, and the bank bill swap rate matter".
"The issues we have found in the bank’s different divisions are a mix of widespread misconduct, repeated failures, and an unacceptable disregard for the trust customers put in banks," he added.
ANZ claimed that, in its view, no loss was caused to the Commonwealth from its trading as duration manager. However, the major said that given ANZ “could have executed its role as duration manager with better communication”, it had offered to pay the AOFM the revenue it earned as duration manager as a goodwill gesture.
In a statement made on Monday (15 September), ANZ chairman Paul O’Sullivan acknowledged that the bank had “made mistakes that have had a significant impact on customers”.
“On behalf of ANZ, I apologise and assure our customers we have taken the necessary action, including holding relevant executives accountable,” O’Sullivan said.
ANZ CEO Nuno Matos said: “The failings outlined are simply not good enough and they reinforce the case for change. It is my expectation that we see measurable improvements across the bank to better protect and care for our customers and to create a more sustainable business.”
Commenting on the Australia Retail business matters, Matos added: “Unfortunately, some of our failings occurred when our customers were at their most vulnerable. For this we are deeply sorry, and we are making changes to better support our customers when they need us most. We have in place customer remediation programs for the issues announced today.”
Speaking about the penalties, Longo said: “Time and time again ANZ betrayed the trust of Australians.
“The total penalties across these matters are the largest announced by ASIC against one entity and reflect the seriousness and number of breaches of law, the vulnerable position that ANZ put its customers in and the repeated failures to rectify crucial issues.
“Banks must have the trust of customers and government. This outcome shows an unacceptable disregard for that trust that is critical to the banking system.
“There are fundamental issues with ANZ’s risk and compliance culture that require the board’s and executives’ urgent attention.”
ASIC has now brought 11 civil penalty proceedings against ANZ since 2016, with proposed and ordered penalties totalling more than $310 million.
The fine by ASIC adds to pressure on ANZ, which last week announced it would make around 3,500 employees redundant by September 2026 to “simplify the bank, strengthen its focus on its priorities, and deliver for its customers”.
The Finance Sector Union slammed the major’s decision.
ANZ was also forced to confirm that no decision had been made about the future of Suncorp Bank, despite reports in The Australian that the brand will pull its products from market next year.
[Related: ANZ refutes Suncorp Bank mothballing rumours]
