New ANZ boss Nuno Matos offers to meet with Austrac boss
Nuno Matos is knocking on doors across Australia’s regulatory agencies, and the financial crimes watchdog won’t be left behind as the big four’s newest recruit settles in.
Business
Don't miss out on the headlines from Business. Followed categories will be added to My News.
ANZ’s newly installed chief executive Nuno Matos offered to sit down with the boss of financial crimes watchdog Austrac as part of his regulatory outreach mission to repair relationships between the bank and Australia’s leading agencies.
Mr Matos talked up his expertise in anti-money laundering and sanctions rules across nine international markets in a letter to Austrac boss Brendan Thomas, released under Freedom of Information laws to The Australian.
“As a result I understand the importance of ensuring not just compliance, but also effective harm reduction in the communities where ANZ operates,” he wrote.
In his May letter, Mr Matos offered to sit down with Mr Thomas “to discuss how ANZ and Austrac can continue to partner together to protect our financial system and our customers”.
However, the two are yet to meet.
Portugal-born Mr Matos previously worked at global banking major Santander before taking on a job at HSBC.
Santander was fined £107.7m ($222m) in 2022 by the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority over serious and persistent gaps in its anti-money laundering controls. The FCA found Santander failed to oversee and manage its AML systems between at least 2012 and 2017.
Mr Matos worked at Santander till 2015, and was at HSBC from 2015 to 2025, assuming the job of deputy CEO at HSBC Mexico.
HSBC paid a $US1.9bn fine in 2012, before his time, after being found to have serviced Mexican drug cartels.
HSBC in 2020 self-reported to Austrac, which accepted a volountary remedation program after it failed to comply with the regulator’s standards around the under-reporting of cross-border transactions.
ANZ is known to value its relationship with Austrac, the only major bank not to face the regulator’s ire in the past decade.
CBA and Westpac have both been targeted by Austrac resulting in the largest financial penalties ever metered out in the banking sector, while NAB was forced to agree to an enforceable undertaking in 2022 amid concern about the bank’s failure to police suspicious transactions.
ANZ’s group head of financial crime risk, Cassandra Hewett, serves as co-chair on the Fintel Alliance’s executive board.
The Fintel Alliance is an Austrac-led intelligence sharing deal between the regulator, police and several financial institutions and gambling companies.
ANZ helped Austrac and the Australian Federal Police in a raid on a major online vaping business, operating out of Sydney.
Mr Matos told Mr Thomas ANZ reaffirmed its support for “Austrac’s efforts to put in place new AML and counter-terrorism financing (CTF) reforms, as well as joint efforts to uplift AML/CTF in the Pacific”.
From 2026, new entities will fall under Austrac’s supervision as part of a third tranche of money laundering reforms, with the regulator now overseeing real estate professionals, lawyers, accountants, as well as precious metals and gem dealers.
Mr Matos’ mention of the Pacific in his letter comes in the wake of a deal signed between ANZ and the Australian government to support its operations in the region over the coming decade. ANZ operates in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Vanuatu, Tonga, Solomon Islands, East Timor, Kiribati and the Cook Islands.
The Federal government has given the bank a $2bn guarantee as part of the deal, for which ANZ pays an annual fee. ANZ pledged to invest $50m in its Pacific banking systems.
Mr Matos has also written to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the Australian Office of Financial Management, both noteworthy given a regulatory probe into alleged rate rigging. ANZ denies any wrongdoing.
ASIC is preparing its findings after investigating an accusation ANZ’s markets business rigged government bond trades in a $14bn deal in 2023.
ANZ has been iced out of government bond deals in the wake of the scandal, which saw several staff removed from the markets business.
ASIC had expected to finalise its decision by July.
However, the corporate regulator is also casting a watchful eye over troubles in ANZ’s retail bank, where The Australian previously revealed ASIC was investigating the banking major’s handling of hardship complaints and treatment of deposits.
Head of retail banking, Maile Carnegie,resigned in June with 10 days’ notice as Mr Matos drew a line under the ANZ Plus technology project over which she had stewardship.
Mr Matos also wrote to Australian Prudential Regulation Authority boss John Lonsdale.
APRA slapped ANZ with a $500m capital overlay, triggering the early exit of the bank’s former boss Shayne Elliott, amid concerns about non-financial risk taking surfaced by the bond trading scandal.
Mr Matos has also met with Reserve Bank boss Michele Bullock, in a roundtable on July 9.
More Coverage
Originally published as New ANZ boss Nuno Matos offers to meet with Austrac boss
‘If you’re not long, you need to get long’: bulls assemble for ASX history
The Australian sharemarket has just had its best day in more than two months but is it just FOMO’s effect? August’s reporting season could be a potential reality check for valuations.
Miners ask Fair Work watchdog to investigate union threats
The Minerals Council of Australia accused the Electrical Trades Union of making false and unlawful claims in an email sent to multiple employers using labour hire workers.