ANZ pays $30m for financial planning error

ANZ is reimbursing customers of one of its financial planning services after they did not receive what they paid for.

An ANZ bank branch in Sydney

ANZ is reimbursing $30 million to customers of one of its financial planning services. (AAP)

ANZ is paying back $30 million to financial planning customers who failed to get the service they paid for.

The bank will reimburse about 8,500 clients who had signed up for its Prime Access service, which gives customers priority access to advisers, monitors the performance of their investments and provides annual reviews of their financial wellbeing.

A review of the service by ANZ found that many customers had not received annual reviews and, after alerting the corporate regulator, is required to pay back those customers.

"We sincerely apologise to our clients for not delivering all of the Prime Access services we promised and we will reimburse affected clients as soon as possible," ANZ chief executive of global wealth Joyce Phillips said.

"We have also put in place a range of measures to ensure this issue does not happen again."

The payout equates to an average of more than $3,500 per customer.

Commonwealth Bank and Macquarie Group are also reimbursing financial planning clients, after reviews found evidence some of their customers had been misled or given bad advice.

NAB recently admitted it had paid out up to $15 million to 750 customers in the past five years because of bad advice from NAB Wealth.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) said its investigations into large financial advice firms is continuing.


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