This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
ANZ has been slapped with a $10 million penalty by the Federal Court over its non-compliant home loan introducer program.
The introducer program involved home loan referrals to ANZ from third-party ‘introducers’ from various professions, including cleaners and real estate agents.
The Federal Court found that between March 2017 and March 2018, ANZ breached consumer credit protection laws by accepting information and documents in support of 50 home loan applications from unlicensed third parties who were not licensed to engage in credit activity.
It also found that between November 2015 and March 2018, ANZ did not have adequate processes in place in its to ensure compliance of the program, and failed to take reasonable steps to ensure ANZ’s representatives complied with consumer credit protection laws.
“Under consumer protection laws, ANZ’s introducer program should have only accepted names and contact details for customers from unlicensed third parties. Instead, ANZ was sent sensitive information by unlicensed intermediaries, including pay slips and copies of identification documents. In some cases, these documents were fraudulent,” Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) deputy chair Sarah Court said.
“By failing to have robust compliance and training processes in place, ANZ made it possible for third-party intermediaries to misrepresent consumers’ financial details in order to receive commissions on loans approved based on possibly misleading information.”
ANZ admitted the contraventions and has agreed to conduct a review of its policies and procedures around its introducer program.
The major bank has also been ordered to pay ASIC’s costs.
In October of 2020, NAB paid a $15 million penalty for dealing with unlicensed home loan introducers. A year earlier, former Western Sydney NAB branch manager, Mathew Alwan, was sentenced to 12 months’ prison to be served by way of intensive corrections order for making false and misleading statements to NAB in relation to 24 home loan applications.
