ANZ pushed to accelerate branch closures

Senior executives at ANZ were urged to “accelerate branch closures” over 2018 and 2019 in regional and remote communities.

Senior executives at ANZ were urged to “accelerate branch closures” over 2018 and 2019 in regional and remote communities, according to an internal briefing presented at the royal commission, which yesterday heard the bank’s Katherine branch in the Northern Territory took four months to open a basic account for an Aboriginal woman from a remote community.

Thy Do, a senior family support worker at Save The Children, told the royal commission yesterday of her struggles to open a no-fee Access Basic account with the bank on behalf of a client, a single mother of three children who had difficulty with English and relied on Centrelink benefits for income. The Aboriginal woman lived in a community 100km from Katherine. ANZ opened a number of superfluous accounts that attracted fees, which the customer did not ask for, the royal commission heard.

“It’s been a long, confusing, frustrating process,” Ms Do told the royal commission, which is holding hearings in Darwin this week as it probes financial service dealings with indigenous Australians.

Tony Tapsall, ANZ general manager of its retail branch network in northern Queensland and the Northern Territory, was questioned over the bank’s decision to close more bank branches after shutting about 50 last year. Counsel assisting Mark Costello asked Mr Tapsall whether it could be “a very dislocating experience” for a community if the last bank branch in town was closed down. “Yes,” Mr Tapsall answered.

In an internal briefing that was to be presented to Australian retail chief executive Fred Ohlsson in April last year, senior managers were seeking approval to accelerate the bank’s exit from rural and regional Australia.

Earlier this year, The Australian revealed the big four banks had closed more than 100 branches this year.

The ANZ briefing said 70 per cent of proposed branch closures were in regional and remote areas. It said proposed closures would proceed subject to “continued close monitoring of the Australian political landscape”.

“Only Westpac is closing branches at a higher rate. ANZ now has the smallest branch network among the majors,” it said. Documents presented at the royal commission showed ANZ expected customer attrition to increase by 5 per cent in the year after a branch was closed down.

Recommendations put forward by bank executives Catriona Noble, the managing director of the regional division, and Nick Freeman, the chief financial officer or the Australia division, show the duo recommended closing the branches despite considering that keeping them open would “potentially mitigate” rural job losses.

In earlier evidence, Ms Do said her client was trying to open a basic account that did not attract fees or overdraft charges, after discovering she had unknowingly been charged regular direct debits for a photography package scam that targeted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Ms Do said she had been told by a staff member at the ANZ Katherine branch the bank no longer offered the Access Basic account, but when she called the ANZ call centre she was informed it did, in fact, exist. Ms Do said she returned to the branch some time later, after an appointment was required by the bank to organise a meeting, and was told that ANZ had opened a Progress Saver account for the customer, which was attached to an Access Advantage account that attracted monthly fees and overdraw fees.

Later it was discovered ANZ had opened a third account for the customer — a Pensioner Advantage account. But Ms Do said when the customer tried to change the account she was told she couldn’t use her password verification and would have to return to Katherine to complete the process. By March this year, Ms Do had lodged a formal complaint with the bank and contacted the Australian Securities & Investments Commission’s indigenous Outreach program to complain about the issue.

The customer was eventually set up with an Access Basic account, but was unable to use the account because the access card had not been sent out, the royal commission heard. Ms Do said that “to her knowledge” the customer still could not use the account.

Counsel assisting Rowena Orr asked if the process had taken “about four months” to open the Access Basic account despite the client’s eligibility for the product.

Mr Tapsall accepted that an Access Advantage account was not the right product for the woman. He also said there was a discrepancy between the information provided by Ms Do and the evidence of the banker in the Katherine Branch.