ANZ CEO Nuno Matos takes call from Treasurer Jim Chalmers on job cuts bombshell

ANZ chief Nuno Matos launched a job cuts storm this week, without revealing all of his cards. But it’s been enough for Treasurer Jim Chalmers to seek answers from the bank boss.

ANZ chief Nuno Matos speaks at a press conference after firing 4500 staff and contractors. Picture: Jane Dempster

Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers phoned ANZ boss Nuno Matos on Tuesday seeking answers as to why the bank was cutting 4500 jobs and to understand the scale of his ANZ shake-up.

The Albanese government is increasingly sensitive to the panic rising from the finance sector where job losses are growing.

The black week for banking didn’t finish with ANZ either, as National Australia Bank, Bendigo Bank and Bank of Queensland axed staff too.

Mr Matos, who joined ANZ in May from an executive role at HSBC, aims to punt 3500 staff from the Melbourne-based bank along with 1000 contractors.

Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers phoned the ANZ chief about his plans. Picture: Martin Ollman

The Treasurer, who is known to be close to Commonwealth Bank’s Matt Comyn and takes a direct interest in how the financial system passes through interest rate changes, declined to reveal the nature of his discussion with Mr Matos.

The rise of artificial intelligence and a general push for efficiency across the banking sector, either by outsourcing or slicing staff numbers, could see as many as ten thousand jobs gone by the end of this year.

Already almost 7000 jobs have been culled, and many banks enforce a hiring freeze.

At ANZ, its retail bank which writes home loans and takes deposits, will be ground zero for the destruction with at least 792 staff from the troubled division to go.

Added to that, 600 ANZ staff in international roles are out. ANZ operates in 29 different countries with key outposts in Singapore, Hong Kong and a major services hub in India.

There are 160 senior manager roles also targeted in the redundancy round, where group 1 and group 2 leadership as they are known will be crunched.

However, counting these, that still leaves almost 2000 staff at ANZ unaccounted for in figures now circulating. And hundreds of people are on rolling 12-month contracts which will expire over the coming months without entitlement to a redundancy.

The redundancies will cost it around $560m before tax. Mr Matos is waging a war on duplication and complexity, telling the media this week that the cuts were “not about profits”, and instead “about getting things right”.

Sources said ANZ is including within its tally those who have already been made redundant since word of ad hoc and sweeping redundancies started circulating around July, when Mr Matos’s plan for the Melbourne bank became apparent.

He has commissioned multiple consulting firms to run the ruler over ANZ as part of the simplification drive and the knives have landed at ANZ Plus, the digital platform conceived under former boss Shayne Elliott and retail bank head Maile Carnegie.

Mr Elliott had pitched ANZ Plus as the bank of the future which all ANZ customers would eventually be plugged in to.

But Mr Matos is unwinding many of the teams created to support ANZ Plus. Ms Carnegie left ANZ in June.

The Portugal-born CEO was mobbed by journalists in the basement of the Fullerton Hotel in Sydney and pursued out of the building into a waiting car. Other than achieving simplicity, his vision for the group is yet to be articulated.

That appearance was ahead of a visit to Canberra on Wednesday for the Australian Banking Association’s board meeting. Mr Matos will take over as chair of the ABA, the peak body for the banking sector, in December this year from NAB’s Andrew Irvine.

Staff at ANZ’s $4.9bn Suncorp Bank are also getting jumpy with internal plans to withdraw its savings and lending products from the market by April next year revealed by The Australian.

Internal sources noted Suncorp Bank has already pulled back from loans, dialling up its risk requirements and only willing to take the safest applicants.

ANZ is steadily moving senior executives within Suncorp Bank to the mothership, most notably its boss Bruce Rush, now the target for much derision from ANZ staff on social media where a pile-on has taken place.

The Finance Sector Union is also running the ruler over its options. The FSU had given ANZ until 5pm on Friday to come up with details for what it plans to do with the remaining 2000 or so staff who are still to be identified.

ANZ is obliged to disclose its plans under an Enterprise Bargaining Agreement struck with the FSU.

Finance Sector Union president Wendy Streets.

FSU national president Wendy Streets, in an email to members, warned the bank’s “secrecy and complete lack of information so far is a clear breach of our Enterprise Agreement”.

The union has also called on Dr Chalmers for an urgent meeting to discuss employment.

The FSU negotiated a deal last year with ANZ for its Suncorp Bank workers, which saw the two banks largely equalise agreements including stipulating staff at the Queensland lender had to now work an extra three hours a week.

The FSU could take ANZ to the Fair Work Commission. It defeated CBA over its plans to dump 45 staff in a botched AI rollout within its customer service teams.

Originally published as ANZ CEO Nuno Matos takes call from Treasurer Jim Chalmers on job cuts bombshell