ANZ today provided an update on its role in assisting the investigation by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) into the Australian Bank Bill Swap Rate (BBSW) market and on the progress of ANZ’s internal review of the matter.
ANZ is continuing to cooperate with the ASIC investigation. To date, this has involved a significant number of people working on the identification, analysis and provision of many hundreds of thousands of documents and records to ASIC and the consideration of complex issues.
ANZ’s internal review, announced in November 2014, is also progressing. Initially this was focussed on the analysis and provision of information to ASIC. More recently, ANZ has extended its review to examine compliance by employees with ANZ’s Code of Conduct including its Use of Systems, Equipment and Information Policy.
As a result of its Code of Conduct review, ANZ today dismissed one employee who was stood down as a precautionary measure in November 2014. This disciplinary action relates to inappropriate electronic communication and is not related to markets trading practices. Investigations related to other staff have either been completed or are ongoing.
All ANZ employees are required to understand and to work under the Code of Conduct and are trained to ensure they understand their obligations, which includes behaviour consistent with ANZ’s values of treating people with dignity and respect.
ANZ Chief Risk Officer Nigel Williams said: “Appropriate conduct and respect for others is paramount at ANZ. We have more than 1,000 staff in our markets operations, the vast majority of whom work responsibly in line with our values and our Code of Conduct. We will however continue to learn from the findings of our review as it unfolds and take any
necessary action.”
Although at this stage it is not appropriate for ANZ to comment further pending the further progress with the ASIC investigation, the bank will keep the market up to date as important developments occur.