ANZ’s ‘Schultz’ joke bombs

ANZ bankers have been making a mockery of the Royal Commission into banking practices at a meeting of small business banking lenders.

Staff presented Guy Mendelson, head of ANZ’s small banking team, with the “I Know Nothing” Award in reference to his appearance at the commissions hearings.

Mr Mendelson was dubbed the “Sergeant Schultz” of the commission for his repeated failure to answer questions over the ANZ’s former carlending business Esanda.

It was a reference to the character from the TV show Hogan’s Heroes.

There was widespread laughter among the 700 strong crowd at Etihad Stadium last week when Mr Mendelson was presented with a Sergeant Shultz doll at the end of a day’s training session.

“The event was a training function for our small business bankers with a focus on how we improve our services and the way we engage with customers given what we have learnt from the Royal Commission,” ANZ spokesman Stephen Ries said.

“The nickname Sergeant Schultz was originally given to Guy by a journalist and the award was a very poor attempt at humour in response to that criticism of him.

“ANZ has at all times engaged positively and constructively with the royal commission.”

Mr Mendelson’s performance at the royal commission in March was widely criticised, with a reporter dubbing him Sgt Schultz for his failure to answer questions in any detail.

“I can’t comment because I don’t know”, “I genuinely don’t know”, and “I don’t know, I can’t comment,” were among Mr Mendelson’s answers at the royal commission.

ANZ has sold its car lending arm Esanda for $8.2 billion in 2015.

The bank, which had been briefed as to what would be asked of him, presented Mr Mendelson as the best witness they could provide.

But Mr Mendelson never worked at Esanda so was unable to provide explanations for why customers were charged sky high interest rates of up to 24 per cent on car loans.

ANZ was fined $5 million for breaking responsible lending laws over the Esanda loans.

It removed 500 brokers from its network of car dealer finance in 2016.