100,000 ANZ customers under-charged interest

ANZ has pledged $10 million for customers affected by the faulty calculator, which was used to calculate some loan repayments between June 2015 and May 2016.

The problems date back to June 2015 when the lender introduced a new calculator to work out repayments for people who had changed their loans. The faulty system meant the bank did not charge customers interest between the first of the month and the day in the month the loan was changed.

Roughly 100,000 customers underpaid interest over the period, according to ANZ spokesman Stefan Herrick. Herrick said: “We needed to understand the issue properly before we could put it right. This involved understanding who was impacted and how – which involved asking Deloitte to review this with us – and developing a plan to put things right for any impacted customers.”

Herrick said ANZ customers underpaid roughly $2 on average and the problems only affected customers during the month people changed their loans. The bank has pledged to cover the interest shortfall and expects costs to reach $10 million.

ANZ contacted the Commerce Commission in June 2017 following an internal investigation into the errors, blamed on computer code. Herrick said the bank was “openly engaging with them as we’ve worked through putting our customers right”.

He added: “We identified the problem, fixed it, informed the regulator and are putting customers right. No customers will be out of pocket.”

The Commerce Commission is conducting its own investigation into the affair. A spokeswoman said: “In June 2017 ANZ reported an issue to us relating to their loan calculator. We have an open investigation into the matter and cannot comment further at this time.”