Anz Mixes Message; Falcon Off Course

The Age

Wednesday September 24, 2008

Mark Hawthorne

SECURITY is a buzzword at Australia's fourth-biggest bank.

ANZ has spruiked its high-tech systems, and advertises its "security notification of suspicious transactions" system called ANZ Falcon. You may have seen the TV ads, with a bird of prey swooping on unsuspecting crooks. But has the Falcon flown the coop?

According to the details from a complaint lodged with the bank on Monday, ANZ's emphasis on customer security seems to be getting a little lax.

When customer Greg McKie - officer of the Order of Australia and justice of the peace - arrived home on Friday he was stunned to find the names, banking details and account balances of three ANZ customers on his answering machine. The details were left by a member of the "ANZ settlement team".

"She left a message which mentioned three ANZ clients by their full names and then mentioned exactly the amount that each account was in shortfall by," McKie said.

"I presume from the message she thought she was contacting the clients' solicitors in relation to a settlement."

McKie says the three men named on his answering machine owe the bank "tens of thousands of dollars".

Unlike ANZ, he was keeping their identities quiet.

"I was not home when the message was left, but others were and they heard all the details, as we did when we returned," he said. "I was appalled - how could confidential information be so freely disclosed? So much for banking rules about confidentiality and privacy laws."

Maybe ANZ is just adopting the recommendations of its own Securities Lending Review, released in the wake of its margin-lending fiascos. Item 11 of that review states: "ANZ will improve exposure reporting to its senior risk and line management that monitors both size and movements in customer activity." May we suggest that reporting customer activity to other customers is going a little too far.

ANZ security services manager Dean Thompson has a page on the bank's website called Security Matters that tells customers not to disclose their personal details to any third party. Full Disclosure hit the "ask Dr Dean" tab and queried what to do if the bank disclosed such details to a third party. So far, Dr Dean has been a little on the quiet side.

ANZ confirmed that the error occurred, but said it only affected one customer and one mortgage account.

"We would like to apologise to the customer, it was a genuine and isolated mistake by one of our staff members and has been escalated to the managing director of mortgages," said an ANZ spokeswoman.

"We are currently investigating why this incident occurred to ensure that it does not happen again. ANZ is committed to maintaining the privacy and security of our customer information through adherence to strict policies and procedures in keeping with Australian law."

Wisdom of Solomon

FRESH off the boat from his European getaway, Premier Investments chairman Solomon Lew at least has another toy to play with - fashion retailer Just Group.

But suntanned Solly was keen to deliver an "I-told-you-so" to those in the media who doubted his foresight and wisdom.

"If you go back to the last day of March and the early days of April, I predicted a retail downturn and a financial crisis on a global basis," he told journalists as he unveiled Just's full-year result.

For the record, Lew did tip the looming downturn in consumer spending when he launched the bid earlier this year. But it's hard to find any record of him making a call about the nightmare on Wall Street. Lew wasn't convinced that the US Government's $US700billion ($840billion) lifeline to ailing financial institutions was going to be what markets were hoping for. "There's still a lot more pain to come and I don't think that it's a final solution."

Bankers nosedive

THERE was some interesting reading in Brett Le Mesurier's latest Macquarie Group research note, and it had nothing to do with his recent and very informal chat with the corporate watchdog.

The Wilson HTM banking analyst looked at how the liquidity crisis had hurt the personal fortunes of some of the nation's more famous bankers. Titled How The Mighty Have Fallen, Le Mesurier reports that the value of Macquarie shares held by the company's executive team has slumped from $280 million to just $158 million in the year to last Friday. That's a 44% fall.

The pain is even greater at Babcock & Brown, where the tumble over the same period has been 94%, from $1.62billion to just $89 million.

Ordinary mistake

TYPING errors are easily made - Full Disclosure last week recorded E*TRADE's fine for its Colorado Group share trading misdemeanour at $30,000 plus GST, instead of $20,000 plus GST.

But rarely do you get a malapropism like the one appearing in a missive from the corporate watchdog: "The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has this morning issued further clarification to market participants regarding the prohibition on short-selling to ensure that fair and ordinary markets continue."

That should be "fair and orderly markets", Full Disclosure is assured, but in these very ordinary times for share prices, it's hard to argue that ASIC actually got it wrong.

© 2008 The Age

Back to News Index | Back to Home