Brief: Call for royal commission into financial planning, ANZ sheds jobs

Banking Day staff
  • Revelations about problems in National Australia Bank's investment advisory businesses in Fairfax Media publications last week have sparked calls for a royal commission into the financial planning industry. Leaks about NAB's financial planning issues come on top of similar problems facing Commonwealth Bank and Macquarie Group. The chair of Parliament's Economics Reference Committee, Sam Dastyari, said the various cases of bad advice showed there was an industry-wide problem that required a wide-ranging response, rather than leaving it up to individual banks.
  • ANZ has confirmed a Finance Sector Union report that the bank has cut 149 jobs, many of which will go offshore. The FSU said the cuts were in technology support, global markets, retail lending and commercial origination. The FSU said ANZ had sent 5500 jobs offshore since 2007.