ANZ has hired the outgoing Commonwealth Ombudsman to lead a company-funded review into bank and financial services products.
ANZ has announced the appointment of Colin Neave as its Customer Fairness Advisor, a new role to help improve fairness of the bank’s products and services for retail, small business and wealth customers in Australia.
In the new role Neave will be reporting to Chief Executive Officer Shayne Elliott.
The appointment comes as the big four Australian banks battle a crisis in confidence and calls for a royal commission after a string of scandals revealed widespread misconduct.
Yesterday finews.asia reported that ANZ had been fined $9 million by the Australian Federal Court in respect of its admission that it engaged in ten instances of attempted cartel conduct in contravention of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (CCA).
Thousands of Complaints
Neave is a former Chief Ombudsman of the Financial Ombudsman Service, the Australian Banking Industry Ombudsman, Chairperson of the Legal Services Board of Victoria and Vice Chair of the Australian Press Council.
According to CEO Elliott, ANZ receives 50,000 complaints a year, varying in the level of seriousness, the complaints data could be mined and checked for themes.
Commenting on the appointment Elliott said, «Colin’s deep experience in financial services, examining and resolving the most difficult of issues, makes him the ideal person to provide us with frank and independent assessments of the fairness of our products and services.»
Neave will be based in Melbourne and will commence with ANZ early in 2017.
