Last week it was the National Australia Bank with a $1.1 billion surprise lift in its remediation costs for customers, yesterday it was Melbourne-based rival, ANZ with another $559 million of its own.
The announcement means the ANZ has now set aside more than $1.1 billion in customer remediation costs in the last year years – less than half the amount of the NAB and considerably less than the Commonwealth.
Westpac should be about to make an announcement as well as seeing the NAB and ANZ are also September balancing banks and are doing some pre-release clean up ahead of their annual figures coming out in a few weeks.
The NAB’s $1.18 billion was the pre-tax cost – the post-tax cost was $832 million.
The ANZ said on Tuesday said $405 million of the second-half provision was related to the refund of fees and interest following reviews of Australian retail and commercial products.
The remaining $154 million stems from its divested wealth business.
While the ANZ says it has now set aside $1.104 billion of post-tax remediation provisions over two years, it cautioned that it is still looking into its accounts with ongoing reviews.
Chief financial officer Michelle Jablko said in Tuesday’s statement.
“We are well progressed in fixing issues and have a dedicated team of more than 500 specialists working hard to get any money owed back to customers as quickly as possible.”
ANZ shares rose 0.4% to $27.42.
