Australia fines ANZ $10 mln over periodical payment fees between accounts

02 October, 2020 | Australia News
Pedestrians walk past a customer using an ATM at an ANZ Bank branch in Sydney, Australia, August 15, 2017. (Photo: Reuters)

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd says it has been fined $10 million by a federal court for wrongly charging customers fees for some transactions made between their accounts.

The country’s fourth-largest bank admitted to 327,895 breaches for charging periodical payments fees between July 2013 and September 2015 and not remediating fees charged to customers between July 2005 and December 2007.

ANZ said the breaches related to fees totalling about $3.1 million. (https://bit.ly/3nccsMQ)

The penalty was levied after the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) filed a suit against ANZ in July last year.

Many Australian banks have been slapped with several lawsuits from customers and regulators since a national inquiry into widespread financial misconduct rocked the sector in 2018.

ANZ was not entitled to charge non-payment and transaction fees from customers where the periodic payment was made between two accounts held in the same customer’s name, the ASIC said in a statement today.

 

Reuters