Category: Banking and Finance

• Consumer confidence eased 0.4pts last week to 82.6pts. The four-week moving average fell 0.1pts to 82.7pts.

• ‘Weekly inflation expectations’ rose 0.1pts to 4.8 per cent, while the four-week moving average fell to 4.9 per cent from 5.0 per cent.

• ‘Current financial conditions’ (over the last year) declined 1.5pts, while ‘future financial conditions’ (next 12 months) dropped 1.0pts.

• ‘Short-term economic confidence’ (next 12 months) eased 0.8pts and ‘medium-term economic confidence’ (next five years) declined 1.4pts.

• The ‘time to buy a major household item’ subindex rose 2.6pts after the previous week’s 6.0pt fall.

ANZ Head of Customer Protection, Shaq Johnson said: “Scams are a widespread issue and a scourge on the community. At ANZ, and across the banking sector, we continue to invest in prevention and protection measures to help keep our customers safe from cybercrime.”

From October 2023 to June 2024, total ANZ customer scam losses fell by around 49 per cent and the number of scam events decreased by around a third compared with the same period in 2023. In that time, ANZ has prevented more than $100 million of customer funds going to cybercriminals

The bank’s data shows online platforms are the most common source of scams, accounting for almost 45 per cent of customer reports, followed by telephone or sms, and email.

“The measures we’ve implemented are having an impact – but while it’s an encouraging sign, there is more to do, including continued focus on education to inform people about how criminal syndicates are targeting their victims, changing methodology, and what to look out for,” Johnson said.

ANZ continues to invest significantly as part of its fight to help protect customers and the community from scams and other financial crimes, including:

• Piloting a dedicated team of specialists in our customer protection team who handle calls about fraud and scams.
• Implementing additional friction and delays to specific payment destinations which we have identified as having a high scam or fraud risk. The destinations are updated on an ongoing basis to reflect the latest data.
• The introduction of Crypto Protect, a tool which turns off the ability for ANZ Plus customers to make payments to cryptocurrency exchanges used in around half of all scams unless customers choose to override it.
• Increase personalised warning messages to inform customers when a transaction or activity is considered high risk.
• Introducing a new Scam Scoring model, that uses AI to complement current security systems and boost our scam detection.
• Introducing a Mule Detection model to detect mule accounts and restrict the movement of scam proceeds.
• Enhancing education for customers with increased alerts on our website and digital channels to provide detail on new scam types and red flags.
• Adding a new scams awareness model to ANZ’s flagship financial education program, MoneyMinded, which equips community professionals with tools and advice to support their clients to identify and protect themselves from scams. The module is available to more than 9,000 accredited coaches in Australia.

ANZ continues to work closely with other banks, industries, government and law enforcement to collectively address scam trends and stay ahead of scammers to protect Australians.

“Criminals used to rob bank branches, but increasingly they scam customers. The landscape has evolved significantly as perpetrators become increasingly sophisticated, with complex scams that will often involve more than one victim.

“Scammers take advantage of the fact that victims feel ashamed and don’t want to talk about their experience, but awareness is a critical defence in the fight against scams. By sharing stories and experiences, we not only raise awareness but also empower the community with the knowledge to recognise and avoid fraudulent schemes,” Johnson said.

ANZ notes APRA’s comments confirming ANZ is financially strong with strong capital and liquidity levels. The impact of the additional operational risk overlay of $250 million is 6 basis points of Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) capital[1].  

ANZ acknowledges APRA’s concerns and is expediting work already underway to address the issues raised. This includes working with APRA on the scope of an independent culture and control review within its Markets business which has already been initiated and will report to the Board.

From the farm to the household fridge, food waste remains a major issue across the Australian food supply chain.

According to ANZ’s latest Food For Thought report, Australian households alone discard about 3.1 million tonnes of edible food annually, equivalent to $8 billion.

ANZ Head of Institutional Food, Beverage and Agribusiness, Gerry Karam said: “In Australia we continue to have a significant food waste problem, which affects every stage of the food supply chain, from production and processing to retail and consumption.”

“The issue has far-reaching environmental, economic, and social implications, demanding urgent action and innovative solutions.”

At a farm level, various factors such as overproduction, market fluctuations, harvesting challenges and stringent quality standards lead to substantial losses. It is estimated that over 20 percent of vegetables produced in Australia – equivalent to around one million tonnes annually – never make it to market.

The problem extends beyond farms and into Australian households, where food waste is a pervasive issue, due to causes including over-purchasing, improper storage, and confusion over expiration dates.

“Another example is that Australians throw away nearly 1.3 billion slices of bread each year, which if stacked up, would create a tower over 1,000 kilometres high.”

“According to the UN Food Waste Index Report, Australians waste an average of 102 kilograms of food per person each year, placing the country among the highest food wasters globally”, said Karam.

“Food waste has a wide range of impacts, including environmentally, such as from landfill methane production, economically, through the cost of wasted food, and arguably most importantly socially, when dealing with Australia’s own food insecurity issues,” he said.

“Despite the challenges, there are a range of opportunities to reduce food waste, such as organisations who redistribute surplus food to charities, or through innovations in turning food waste into edible ingredients or renewable energy.”

“Reducing food waste is not just an environmental imperative; it is also an economic opportunity that can drive positive change across the entire food supply chain,” he said.

ANZ Economist, Madeline Dunk said: “ANZ-Roy Morgan Australian Consumer Confidence eased 0.9pts last week, driven by a 6.0pt fall in the ‘time to buy a major household item’ subindex. The current financial situation subindex also declined 1.9pts, but it is still up 5.2pts over the past two weeks and 9.6pts compared to the start of July. Despite some volatility in the week-to-week data, it appears the Stage 3 tax cuts are supporting confidence. Notably, inflation expectations fell to 4.7 per cent, their lowest level since January 2022, before inflation picked up materially in Australia.

It’s been a bumpy path down for inflation expectations since the peak of 6.8 per cent in November 2022, and that bumpiness has been evident in other measures like the NAB business survey’s price measures. The NAB measures are now consistent with inflation sitting around 2.5 per cent. We’ll be watching to see if inflation expectations continue to moderate over the coming weeks.”

Executing the first transaction for BNP Paribas on 2 July 2024, ANZ demonstrated its ability to settle the last stage of inward international AUD payments to eligible non-ANZ beneficiaries in near real-time¹.

ANZ Managing Director Transaction Banking Lisa Vasic said: “We see this as a game changer, which will help make sending payments simpler and faster for our financial institution customers. It will significantly improve the customer experience by reducing wait times, improving cash flow and increasing operational efficiency.

As the largest Australian dollar clearing bank in Australia, both individuals and businesses stand to benefit from receiving their international payments in near-real time. We’re particularly pleased that the infrastructure was built using in-house capability without relying on third party solutions.”

To execute the transaction, BNP Paribas sent an international payment to ANZ via SWIFT, which ANZ was able to process and clear into the NPP network, allowing the beneficiary to receive this payment in near real time.

BNP Paribas’ Global Head of Cash Management, Payments, Trade Solutions and Factoring, Pierre Fersztand said: “This partnership marks a significant step in BNP Paribas’ strategy to achieve instant and frictionless international payments. By strengthening our relationship with an established local partner, we are leveraging the local instant clearing framework allowing cross-border payments to settle instantly in order to enhance our clients’ experience.

Our approach aligns fully with the G20 roadmap for improving cross-border payments. As we continue to expand, BNP Paribas is actively working to enable additional payment corridors, subject to the capabilities of local clearing systems. This collaboration underscores our commitment to innovation in global transaction banking, ensuring we meet the evolving needs of our clients in an increasingly interconnected world.”

ANZ is focused on supporting multinationals and financial institutions with the movement of money and goods globally. ANZ Institutional retained its position as lead provider of AUD bank-to-bank clearing services globally for the 16th consecutive year, according to the recent FImetrix survey.

1. Subject to those payments meeting certain eligibility requirements including, but not limited to, the payment message being formatted correctly and the receiving bank being enabled to receive international payments via NPP.