Do we like ANZ?
Big-four bank (ANZ Group Holdings) with retail, business and institutional banking in Australia and NZ. Based in Melbourne.
Our score: 4 out of 10. Not yet. Record regulator penalties, repeated conduct failures and the biggest fossil fuel lending among Australian banks outweigh a new CEO's promised clean-up.
ANZ is one of Australia's big four banks, run from Melbourne and listed on the ASX and NZX. Nuno Matos took over as CEO in May 2025 and promptly ordered a strategic review. He has been trying to simplify the bank and cut costs ever since.
The big stain is conduct. In September 2025 ANZ admitted widespread misconduct, including unconscionable conduct in a A$14bn government bond deal and failures with about 65,000 retail customers. The Federal Court later ordered A$250m in penalties, the largest ASIC has ever won against one entity.
ASIC says this is its eleventh civil penalty case against ANZ since 2016, and it blamed a significant failure to manage non-financial risk across the bank. That is a pattern, not a one-off.
Staff haven't had an easy ride either. About 3,500 jobs are going, and some staff learned of their redundancy from an automated email that Matos called indefensible. On climate, campaigners say ANZ still leads the big four on fossil fuel finance, and it hasn't ruled out funding a Beetaloo gas pipeline.