ANZ says not aware of any pending Austrac action

ANZ is reassuring markets that it’s not aware of any pending legal action coming from Austrac.

ANZ chief risk officer Kevin Corbally. Picture Kym Smith

ANZ is reviewing its anti-money laundering systems and processes but is “not aware” of any impending litigation from financial crimes regulator Austrac, the bank announced on Wednesday morning.

Nor has it found any “material issues” from an internal review of its anti-money laundering systems.

“Protecting the Australian banking system from criminal use is one of our most important roles and one all of our people are trained in and take incredibly seriously,” ANZ chief risk officer Kevin Corbally said in a statement to the ASX.

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He said ANZ has been working with Austrac, law enforcement and the broader industry to detect, prevent and disrupt serious financial crimes. This includes money laundering, terrorism, human trafficking, tax evasion and child exploitation.

“Given recent issues identified by Austrac within the industry, we have been reviewing the systems and processes we use to transfer money to ensure we are reporting the information required by regulators,” he said.

“While the review is ongoing, it has found no material issues to date,” Mr Corbally said.

ANZ’s announcement comes a day after Westpac CEO Brian Hartzer and chairman Lindsay Maxsted announced they would step down in the wake of the Austrac scandal that has engulfed the bank. Austrac is taking Westpac to the federal court over more than 20 million transactions that were not properly reported and for not taking adequate action over transactions with links to child exploitation in Asia.

In March 2017, ANZ joined the Fintel Alliance, a public-private partnership led by Austrac to combat serious financial crime, including child exploitation.

ANZ said it issued the comments in a statement in response to shareholder queries.

Commonwealth Bank was the first of the major banks to fall foul of the financial crimes regulator and was eventually forced to pay a $700m fine over the issues Austrac uncovered.

ANZ’s Melbourne rival National Australia Bank, meanwhile, has disclosed an Austrac issues as a contingent liability in its accounts for three consecutive years.

The NAB disclosure mentions a significant program of work to strengthen the bank’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing program after a number of compliance breaches were reported.