ANZ Bank to pay record fine for collecting fees from deceased customers' accounts
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One of Australia's largest banks, ANZ Group, has agreed to pay A$240 million (about $159.5 million) in fines, the largest penalty imposed on a single company in the history of the corporate regulator. This was reported by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), writes Reuters.

The violations included manipulation of government bonds, systemic failures in customer service, and even charging fees to accounts of deceased people.

"ANZ has betrayed the trust of Australians time and time again," said ASIC Chairman Joe Longo, calling the bank's behavior "dirty."

The regulator proved that during the placement of government bonds in April 2023, ANZ traders actively sold large volumes of 10-year futures within 45 minutes before the official price was set.

This led to an artificial reduction in the price by about two basis points, which, according to ASIC, cost the state budget about 26 million Australian dollars.

The bank itself disagreed with the assessment of losses, but offered to return 10 million Australian dollars, the amount it would have earned on the deal. After this incident, ANZ has not participated in government bond placements for more than two years.

The bank also admitted that from 2013 to 2024, it did not accrue the promised bonus interest to new customers due to problems in the system.

In addition, ANZ admitted that between 2019 and 2023, it charged fees on the accounts of thousands of deceased customers because it could not determine which payments should be canceled and whether the money was returned.

In total, since 2016, ASIC has opened 11 cases against the bank, with the total amount of fines exceeding AUD 310 million.

In addition to the payments, ANZ has committed to developing a remediation plan and spending another AUD 150 million on reforming the system by 2026.