Make a note for this page

Save Note

Share with a friend

Send Email

Feedback

We're interested in your thoughts, and welcome any feedback you may have. Please email us with your comments, and we'll use them to continue the improvement of our future Shareholder Reviews.

Feedback

Our approach to
responsible practices

Banking depends upon trust. Our stakeholders expect us to manage and grow our business responsibly. This is particularly important as we move through uncertain times and are faced with worsening economic conditions globally.

Our approach to responsible practices

EMBEDDING HUMAN RIGHTS ACROSS OUR BUSINESS

Since introducing our human rights standards in 2010 – 'Respecting people and communities: ANZ’s approach to human rights', we have taken a number of steps to bring them to life for our staff, customers and suppliers.

Our priority in the first year of implementation was to identify the areas of greatest risk and opportunity for promoting human rights. Three initiatives were identified and progress has been monitored throughout the year. These include:

  • reviewing our People policies to ensure they reflect our human rights standards
  • defining the human rights standards and acceptable behaviours we expect of suppliers
  • integrating the standards into our social and environmental training program to help staff responsible for making business lending decisions.

 

Building global alignment in our people policies

Our People policies have been reviewed to ensure they reflect our human rights standards and provide similar access to entitlements for all staff.

As a result, we have introduced a number of new policies such as the Global Study Assistance Policy and Global Flexible Work Arrangement Policy, which assist our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance.

For many of our staff, particularly those in the Asia Pacific region, the review has led to them having access to entitlements, such as study leave and leave for professional development.

 

Supporting better sourcing decisions

We have strengthened and expanded our Global Sourcing Framework to embed responsible sourcing practices in every country where we operate.

This has involved the development a new Global Sourcing Policy which defines the principles and behaviours expected of all employees, consultants and contractors, and requires that all procurement be undertaken in line with our business values, Code of Conduct and Ethics, CR priorities, and our human rights standards.

We have also developed a new Supplier Code of Practice (SCOP), which outlines the standards we expect our suppliers to meet as a condition of doing business with us.

The SCOP expands on previous commitments and includes new, explicit requirements related to business ethics and human rights such as: adherence to international standards and domestic regulations relating to the employment of children; and the prohibition of unethical business practices, such as inappropriate gifts. We also actively encourage our suppliers to influence their own supply chains to meet these same standards.

 

Taking account of human rights in our lending

We have integrated our human rights standards into a new mandatory training program developed to help corporate lending staff take greater account of social and environmental risks and opportunities.

Staff who complete the program – those responsible for making business lending decisions – learn about social and environmental risk analysis and how our responsible lending policies, including our human rights standards, should guide lending decisions.

The training program complements other policies and processes already in place, such as our sensitive sector policies and our social and environmental screening tool.

The social and environmental screening tool was developed to help staff assess all new and existing customer relationships, on at least an annual basis. The tool helps our staff identify, mitigate and manage social and environmental risks.

Our sensitive sector policies were reviewed in 2011 to ensure they provide clear and relevant decision-making principles to help guide our investment in socially and environmentally sensitive sectors, specifically water, forestry and forests, energy, and extractive industries. The policies apply wherever we operate and to all services we provide to customers from lending through to corporate advisory work. Information on our updated policies can be found at anz.com/cr.

Together, these policies and tools are helping us to embed a culture of responsible lending across our business and ensure that economic, social and environmental risks and opportunities (including our human rights standards) are balanced in all our actions and decisions.

TAKING ACCOUNT OF OUR DECISIONS AND PRACTICES

In September 2010, class action proceedings were commenced against ANZ, claiming that some fees charged on deposit and credit card accounts are penalties and unlawful, or alternatively, that the imposition of these fees was unconscionable or unfair, and that the fees charged should be repaid with interest.

 

ANZ is defending the claim on several grounds, including that the fees charged were fees for services provided to our customers. The case is at an early stage.

IMF (Australia) Ltd, a publicly listed company that provides funding for legal claims on a no-win, no-fee basis, is funding the class action. IMF has stated that it intends to fund similar class actions against all the other major banks in Australia.

BRICK BY BRICK

Disaster touched almost every corner of our region during the year, bringing with it trauma and devastation for our communities, customers and staff.

2011 began with large-scale floods across four Australian States, followed by devastating earthquakes and ongoing aftershocks in Christchurch, Cyclone Yasi in North Queensland and the horrific impact of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

In Australia and New Zealand, we provided immediate assistance for many affected customers, offering a range of support measures including suspending loan repayments and waiving early withdrawal fees for customers wanting to access term deposits.

For staff living in disaster zones, we made available emergency cash grants of $1,000 and offered paid leave so they could take time off to manage their personal circumstances or to support community efforts.

In Christchurch, together with the NZ Government,we announced NZ$1b in mortgage lending assistance at a discounted rate to help relocate impacted homeowners.

This commitment provides new residential mortgage lending and a special low interest rate of 2.04% below the normal rate for one year for homeowners whose homes are located in the government's declared ‘red zone’ – the area most severely damaged by the earthquakes.

We also offered special assistance for our customers affected by cyclones and floods in Australia with car loan, personal loan and payment holidays for an initial period of three months, to the value of $64m. OnePath – our wealth management business – and ANZ Insurance will pay more than $11m to customers affected by the Queensland floods, and $9m by Cyclone Yasi. On top of this, more than $7m in ex-gratia payments will be paid to our customers who did not have flood cover, but were impacted by riverine floods.

These initiatives are in addition to the $3.7m ANZ donated to disaster appeals this year, including matching of staff donations. Our staff also contributed a further $1.3m and volunteered many hours of their time to assist communities affected by disaster. Likewise, our customers have given generously, donating $13.7m to disaster appeals via our branches and internet banking.

Marianne De Gouw, Personal Banker and St John Ambulance Volunteer

Marianne De Gouw, Personal Banker and St John Ambulance Volunteer
Supporting emergency services in Christchurch

KEY GOALS WE SET OUT TO ACHIEVE IN 2011

KEY GOALS WE SET OUT TO ACHIEVE IN 2011

PERFORMANCE

CUSTOMERS

  

Maintain our leadership position on customer satisfaction among the major banks in Australia
and improve our performance in New Zealand.

 Achieved or on track to achieve

Improve our performance on the Peter Lee and Associates survey of Corporate and Institutional clients.

 Achieved or on track to achieve

Resolve 90% of retail customer complaints within five business days.

 Partially achieved or in progress

Publicly report evaluations and action plans arising from a review of our initiatives to support customers facing financial difficulty, including our Debt Advice and Early Assistance pilots in Australia and customer financial well-being initiatives in New Zealand.

 Achieved or on track to achieve

Implement products and services to assist clients and customers with the transition towards a lower carbon economy, including increasing the proportion of lending to the renewable energy sector.

 Achieved or on track to achieve

EMPLOYEES

  

Achieve an employee engagement score of 68% and implement actions to respond to feedback from our 2010 My Voice Employee Survey.

 Achieved or on track to achieve

Engage 120 of our senior executives in a leadership program to identify and make the most of opportunities created by our super regional growth strategy.

 Achieved or on track to achieve

Implement employee well-being programs and reduce our Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) in Australia (by 5–10%), New Zealand (by 1–5%) and stay under an LTIFR of 1.0 in India.

 Achieved or on track to achieve

Achieve 100,000 hours volunteering globally and undertake skilled volunteering pilots in Australia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and Vietnam.

 Partially achieved or in progress

Implement a new approach to payroll giving and achieve 15% employee participation in Australia and New Zealand.

 Partially achieved or in progress

SUPPLIERS

  

Develop, implement and report on a Global Sourcing Policy and Global Supplier Code of Practice incorporating social, environmental and governance standards.

 Achieved or on track to achieve

Continue to implement and report on our program of verification and spot checks for compliance< with our sustainability standards among high-risk suppliers.

 Achieved or on track to achieve

Enhance the criteria guiding our purchasing decisions, to encourage and develop more relationships with inclusive companies who employ and support people with disability.

 Achieved or on track to achieve

GOVERNANCE

  

Continue implementation of our CR framework by developing clear criteria and flagship programs to support each of our priority areas.

 Partially achieved or in progress

Continue implementation of our human rights standards, including publicly reporting our progress.

 Achieved or on track to achieve

Complete a review of investment portfolios across our business against the guidelines set out in the UN Principles for Responsible Investment.

 Partially achieved or in progress

Implement enhanced social and environmental policies, training and evaluation processes for sensitive sector clients in Asia Pacific.

 Achieved or on track to achieve

Continue to develop a strong risk aware culture across the bank through employee training, proactive governance health checks and implementation of our Global Policy Governance Framework.

 Achieved or on track to achieve
  • Achieved or on track to achieve
  • Partially achieved or in progress
  • Did not achieve

For full commentary on progress against targets for 2011, and to view our key goals in 2012 visit: anz.com/cr-targets

 

JOHN KEY, PRIME MINISTER OF NZ

John Key, Prime Minister of New Zealand

“In June 2011, I personally welcomed ANZ’s offer of $1b in discounted mortgage lending to help Christchurch families. i am also aware ANZ has assisted over 2,900 Christchurch retail and business customers via a special earthquake package with a total value of about $334m, and that ANZ has provided interest-free overdrafts and other assistance to affected businesses totalling over $24m.

ANZ’s corporate responsibility programme, and its generous support of communities and businesses in need, is a great example of how a company can make a real difference.”

John Key,
Prime Minister of New Zealand