A few sharp questions on credit cards and branch closures awaited Shayne Elliot, ANZ's group chief executive officer, when he fronted the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics on Friday. Elliott was accompanied by Mark Whelan, head of ANZ's institutional bank.
The committee has been keen to explore the state of the housing sector in a post-COVID recovery, and continued this line of enquiry with the ANZ executives.
In line with the other banks' CEOs, Elliott confirmed one of the most notable trends ANZ is seeing is first home buyers entering the market in record numbers, making up around 15 per cent of new loans in the last year.
Also in line with the other major bank CEOs, Elliott was asked to outline ANZ's position on distressed home loans, now that deferrals have ceased.
He noted that ANZ has about one million loans on its books, and around 96,000 customers had applied to have their home loan repayments deferred. "Of this cohort, some 2000 remain in some form of distress," Elliott said.
Committee chair Tim Wilson then put an allegation to Elliott that ANZ was locking some of its customers into high interest credit cards against regulations.
"It's ridiculous and, frankly, it's offensive – it's not true," Elliott shot back.
"This is a high-rate premier offering for people who like all the benefits that come with a high-end credit card and are happy to pay the fee. We are not marketing it to everybody."
Elliot asserted that the top interest rate being charged – 24 per cent – is no higher than the rates charged for similar products offered by his rivals.
Deputy chair Andrew Leigh quizzed Elliott about branch closures, pointing out that ANZ had closed 186 branches between 2015 and 2020, leaving ANZ with 570 branches.
"How many branches do you have now?" Leigh asked
"We have, in Australia, about 450," Elliott replied.
Leigh asked him to explain this "astonishing rapid" rate of branch closures - almost a quarter of all branches in one year, and the fastest rate among the major banks.
"Because of the astonishing rapid rate of customer behaviour change," Elliott fired back. "We have all these digital tools, we have loan specialists will come to your house or your place of work. This has seen branch traffic fall at an alarming rate."
Elliott said ANZ had found people no longer bank at just one branch – echoing comments from NAB chief Ross McEwan in the session before him. He added that most of the closures had been in metro areas, and were more in order of ‘consolidation’ of branches in the same area.
Leigh also questioned the lack of gender diversity among the top ranks of the banking sector, noting that eight men had appeared in front of the committee over the past two days.
Elliott conceded that point but pointed out women made up more than half the employees of all the Big Four banks. He also pointed out that his deputy CEO at the last hearing was Alexis George, who was recently hired by AMP to be