ANZ's remediation bill for glitches hits $200 million and climbing
ANZ's technology glitches and the consequent customer remediation for each issue over a period from about 2011 to 2017 were examined in forensic detail at the Royal Commission into banking misconduct yesterday. On show were the failures, the forensic extraction of a timeline for fixing each problem, and then the remediation. Taking the heat this time was Sarah Mary Stubbings, ANZ's head of home loan product.In this phase, it was just ANZ's home loan business that was given a working over for the second day running. Counsel assisting Albert Dinelli set out to show that each item on its own might have seemed relatively small, but taken as whole it added up to a series of delays and omissions by ANZ. He was trying to reveal a pattern of deliberate actions, rather than inept systems. Late on Tuesday, Dinelli was digging deep into the past when he asked Stubbings about a number of failings at her bank, most notably the failures to link offset accounts to mortgage accounts, as well as failing to charge lower interest rates and fees to customers who signed up to ANZ's Breakfree packages. This has occurred from 2003 onwards for about ten years, affecting over 300,000 customers, and costing an estimated A$130 million in compensation; and then again in 2014 to 2016, with $75 million paid out. Stubbings, sticking to carefully nuanced language as far as possible, said there was 'awareness' from 2011, culminating with notification to ASIC in 2017. These processing errors have resulted in $75 million in compensation.She said a further $15 million to $18 million was expected to be paid to customers who even now have not been notified of the errors. "We're working through the remediation as we speak," Stubbings told Commissioner Kenneth Hayne."In terms of making payments, our current schedule has that happening before Christmas."