ANZ to refund $30m to advice clients
ANZ has announced it will compensate 8500 of its Prime Access clients to the amount of $30 million after it failed to provide documented annual review between 2006 and 2013.
Prime Access is a fee-for-service package, which offers advice and investment services and was first offered by ANZ in 2003. The package is supposed to include access to financial planners, investment monitoring alerts and a documented annual review.
"We sincerely apologise to our clients for not delivering all of the Prime Access services we promised and we will reimburse affected clients as soon as possible," ANZ global wealth chief executive Joyce Phillips said.
ANZ said it reported the issue to Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), and began a remediation program, supported by external consultants PwC and law firm Clayton Utz.
The bank will begin the remediation process after it works out a refund methodology with ASIC.
The remediation program comes even as ASIC announced today it was investigating various cases of licensees charging clients for advice, including annual advice reviews even though the advice was not provided.
ANZ will now include the documented annual review as an "essential" part of balance scorecards for financial planners, Phillips added.
"We have also put in place a range of measures to ensure this issue does not happen again. This includes improved training, technology, audit and supervision," she said.
AUTHOR
Malavika Santhebennur
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