OnePath Under ASIC Review After Compliance Breaches

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ANZ subsidiary, OnePath, will be subject to an independent compliance review after it reported a number of breaches to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

ASIC stated that ANZ reported the breaches which took place from early 2013 to mid-2015 and affected around 1.3 million customers with around $4.5 million paid as refunds and compensation while rectifications and other remediation reached approximately $49 million.

According to ASIC, the compliance breaches related to ANZ’s life insurance, general insurance, superannuation and funds management activities which are operated under OnePath branded subsidiary companies, and specifically included:

  • failure to provide disclosure documentation for some insurance products;
  • inadequate systems or processes to ensure compliance including failure to contact customers, meet statutory timeframes or complete manual steps in a process.
  • insufficient supervision of some outsourced functions, including third party call centres;
  • processing errors, such as payments made to incorrect superannuation accounts; and
  • significant time taken to identify some breaches.

As a result of these breaches ASIC has engaged PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) to review the compliance management framework of the OnePath subsidiaries.

This review will

  • review and assess the design and operational effectiveness of the OnePath compliance management framework including policies and processes;
  • assess the adequacy of processes designed to identify and manage the financial services laws which apply to the OnePath companies holding AFS licences; and
  • identify any gaps in the compliance management framework and report back to the ANZ Group and ASIC.

ASIC stated ANZ had been co-operative in its approach and had notified the regulator of the breaches and had agreed to implement recommendations from the PwC review.



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4 COMMENTS

  1. Great insurer from a product, price, UW, & claims perspective. Lousy management by a big four bank. ASIC are you getting the message?

  2. I’ve had a recent experience with a One Path/ ANZ adviser taking over a policy of ours. The existing policy with our office had no exclusions, this was cancelled and replaced with a One Path policy. A lower back and various other exclusions were placed on the IP and TPD. How is this in the best interest of the client??

  4. Lucy, love the observation you make….fact is a part of the BIG 4 banks, they do not care about anything other than sales, sales, and sales. They will flout the law at will and could not care about the client AT ALL. Is this best interest you ask ? Yes, its just that it is their interest. My simple advice would be to ask for a copy of the Statement of Advice, stay in touch with your former client and if your former client is denied a claim based on the exclusion now provided…..contact a lawyer that will specialist in litigation and encourage your client to take action. Clients are very very trusting of us as advisers. Both political parties play stupid games to the detriment of the consumer….enough is enough….fight back I say.

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