ANZ has confirmed that the Federal Court of Australia approved its settlement with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) regarding fees charged for periodical payments before February 2016. The bank had previously initiated a remediation program for fees charged since January 1, 2008, and has made or will make payments exceeding $49 million. A related class action was settled in December 2018, with ANZ paying approximately $760,000.
In ASIC's legal action, ANZ acknowledged violations involving wrongful fee charges from July 26, 2013, to September 24, 2015, and failure to remediate some fees between July 2005 and December 2007. ASIC pursued ANZ over 1.3 million instances of fee charges. In the settlement, ANZ admitted to contraventions on 327,895 occasions, totaling around $3.1 million in fees. Additionally, ANZ admitted to six other related contraventions.
Under the settlement terms, ANZ will pay $10 million plus $1 million towards ASIC’s costs.