Briefs: Leveraged Equities cuts margin loan rates, Smith wants ANZ to be a model taxpayer, BT to rev

Bendigo and Adelaide Bank is passing on 20 basis points of the latest 25 bps reduction in the cash rate but its margin lending business, Leveraged Equities, is passing on 25 bps. Leveraged announced yesterday that it would reduce the rates on its margin loan and Investment Funds Multiplier by 25 bps, effective from May 25.
In an email to the bank's top managers, ANZ chief executive Mike Smith said the bank would be a model taxpaying corporate citizen, according to a report in The Australian. The email instructs managers to make sure their teams "fully understand and comply with our policies on tax". Smith said he had personally told Australian Taxation Office commissioner Chris Jordan that ANZ would not enter into any arrangements designed to avoid or reduce "the tax that we or our customers and partners owe".
Westpac's wealth management arm, BT Financial Group, has called in KPMG to review its culture, according to a report in the Australian Financial Review. Westpac has come out of the current round of financial planning scandals relatively unscathed but the bank's chief executive Brian Hartzer said last week the organisation needed to review its wealth management operations. The Financial System Inquiry said financial institutions needed to address their culture and values.