ANZ flags A$50m inquiry hit

ANZ’s dealings with the Australian banking royal commission will cost it about A$50 million ($53.3m) this year, the bank has revealed.

The bank has reported it spent A$16m on legal and other costs associated with the royal commission in the first half of the year and flagged a A$50m hit for the full year.

In a report released ahead of its May 1 half-year results, ANZ said it was unable to predict the outcome of the inquiry or what impact it would have on its own business or the broader financial industry.

Set up in the final days of 2017, following mounting and ultimately public pressure, ANZ was among the first of Australia’s biggest financial institutions to endure a torrid time at the hands of Commissioner Kenneth Hayne, QC

In the first week the commission heard that since 2008, ANZ customers have been refunded about A$220m over a string of issues, including A$90m to customers charged the wrong interest rate on their home loans.

The inquiry also heard ANZ stood by its decision to give a 30-year loan to a 71-year-old pensioner who cannot afford the repayments.

The executive responsible for ANZ’s A$265 billion home loan portfolio, William Ranken, said the decision was in line with the bank’s procedures, and that checking customers’ expenses on every application would be complex and expensive.

Commissioner Kenneth Hayne, QC, said that appeared to be a compromise between administrative convenience and obeying the law.

ANZ chief executive Shayne Elliott was the first CEO of the big four lenders — Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, ANZ, National Australia Bank — to publicly back a royal commission, which the federal government finally called at the behest of the quartet. Elliott said he hoped the royal commission would restore the trust of customers and the community. — AAP