[Billion dollar bank fined $9.65 million for misleading customers, charging hidden fees and interest on 186,000 accounts]
A bank with nearly $670 billion in total assets will pay millions in fines for years of misleading credit card customers.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) announced that Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ) will pay a penalty of AU$15 million (approximately US$9.65 million) after the bank was found to have breached ASIC laws and the National Consumer Credit Protection Act.
ANZ is accused of falsely representing to customers that they could withdraw cash from "available funds" free of charge and without interest. However, the court found that ANZ misled customers into thinking they could withdraw cash for free and without interest by offering more cash than was actually available.
ASIC says more than 186,000 ANZ accounts were wrongly charged fees and interest related to cash advances, with some customers being charged thousands of dollars as a result.
Sarah Court, deputy chair of ASIC, said: "Customers deserve clear and correct account information. Many ANZ customers trust the information provided by the bank, but are charged fees that are inconsistent with the information. This is an issue that the bank should detect and solve in time, but ANZ spends It took several years to deal with it.”
In addition to the AU$15 million fine, ANZ also paid AU$8.3 million (approximately US$5.34 million) in compensation to affected customers between May 2016 and November 2018.
