Matched savings program recruiting customers for ANZ

ANZ's matched savings program for very low income earners run by the Brotherhood of St Laurence will double in size after receiving an extra $13.5 million in Australian government funding.

ANZ Saver Plus was developed by ANZ and the Brotherhood of St Laurence in 2002. Other charities are also involved in the program that gives low income earners, particularly single mothers, $1000 towards educational expenses when they save $1000.
 
ANZ Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Graham Hodges, spoke on Friday at a media event featuring the minister for financial services, Chris Bowen, at the brotherhood's community centre in Fitzroy.
 
Hodges said ANZ was proud to be a part of a successful program that he described as "a structured intervention to encourage savings." Some 96 per cent of participants reach or exceed their savings goal and seventy per cent maintain their savings habits after they have completed the program.
 
ANZ seems to be benefiting from the Saver Plus project as well.
 
Many of the (often debt laden) participants in the program had negative attitudes towards banks in general but by the end of it, they were more inclined to favour ANZ products and usually saw ANZ in a more positive light. They were much more sympathetic to the role of the bank and its need to levy fees and charges, according to an assessment of the program by social researchers from RMIT.
 
"Yes I'm more positive towards ANZ. I now have an account and I use it all the time as a saver," said one Saver Plus graduate.
 
"The service is good in the branches. I got to know the people quite well."
 
To date ANZ has shelled out $4 million to more than 5000 program participants who met their savings goals.
 
The extra federal funding will more than double the program's reach by making it available from more than 50 sites, assisting an additional 7600 people by 2011.