How to incense whole industries ANZ style
They declared some law abiding businesses were unworthy of their loans, and thousands of Australians in the steel industry, farming, and manufacturing are livid. The bank is now telling its customers that interest payments are not enough, and those with 50% or more of their operations in coal must diversify. They may well diversify right out of ANZ — a boycott is being discussed. And for shareholders this preening would seem like a dumb way to lose customers. But in Australia it’s worse than that.
The right to earn interest by loaning money they mostly don’t have (by
creating paper currency from thin air) is a glorious gift bestowed on them by an Australian banking license. It’s a perpetual money making machine, granted by a government group called APRA. ANZ is one of The Big Four Banks in Australia. It is supposed to provide an essential service, and in return APRA protects it by using the power of the state to run any new competitors off the ranch and right into jail for counterfeiting. It thus behooves ANZ to serve all law abiding Australian customers equally, and not discriminate based on religious beliefs about weather control.
Don’t look now, ANZ is selling carbon credits
Rather than saving the planet though, ANZ’s climate passion looks like an extortionate scheme to enrich ANZ. To twist the knife, it appears the ANZ sent out a note to clients explaining that
it would grow its own business while it “helped” them to reduce carbon by selling them carbon credits and giving them advice on how to make money off the great carbon credit ponzi scheme themselves. ANZ calls this practical, Ian calls it bastardry.
ANZ explains how customers forced to “diversify” can buy carbon credits from … ANZ
Ian W writes again to the entire board of the ANZ (and most of the Australian parliament).
“Acts of bastardry… don’t deserve a banking license”
A Very Good Evening to you ANZ Board,
I am a long term Shareholder of your Bank and a passionate supporter of Australian manufacturing, mining and farming.
With your Bank’s recent anti-coal announcement – which attacks every single Australian involved in steelmaking, aluminium smelting, food processing, manufacturing, plastics, fertilisers, explosives, other metal smelting and farming, it is clear to me as a Shareholder that the ANZ Management group has lost the plot – and need to be stood down by the Board forthwith.
Your Bank has extreme arrogance and disregard for genuine shareholders and the Australian people – epitomised perfectly by the fact that as a result of our phone conversation and several emails, Shayne Elliott is now blocking my emails and refuses to talk.
He has no right to treat genuine shareholders with such contempt – even if he disagrees with 99% of what I have to say. Somebody needs to tell him, thousands of genuine Shareholders like us own the damn Bank and he works for us! Please pass this email on to Shayne Elliott because this country cannot have Chief Executives of organisations like your Bank destroying our businesses and futures.
Now we in the Australian Steel Industry understand perfectly what false virtue signalling is and we understand why the ANZ is engaged in exactly that. It is because the Bank has, is and can in future, make an absolute fortune out of ripping off innocent Australians through rent seeking activities including carbon trading and funding renewables. Secondly it is because the ANZ Management just go to water when confronted with feral environmental activists at head office and when pressure is applied by partly overseas funded organisations like Market Forces and the Australian Conservation Foundation.
You see, ANZ, we know – that you know – that the concept of Human induced Climate Change is hotly scientifically contested – and in fact that the most powerful Nation in the Free World right now has rejected Paris – and the most powerful Nation in the non-free world is also not bound by Paris – by using the bulldust concept of being a “developing” nation.
Who installed such weak, gutless management into the ANZ Bank that they attack all of our businesses just to appease a few feral overseas funded activists? The Board of the ANZ must stand down every senior leadership person of the Bank immediately please.
A link below from the ABC describes the mad, recently released policy of ANZ – and the additional links below describe exactly what the ANZ has been up to with your customers over the last few years.
With that consistent behaviour from the Bank, you expect us to believe that your renewable objectives are honourable!!!!?????
Could someone from the ANZ Board please contact me, Shayne Elliott isn’t game to talk and this needs to be discussed with a human being at the very top level of the Bank.
About now is a very good time for every one of the hundred thousand people in the Australian steel industry, everyone associated with smelting of other metals, papermaking, mining, manufacturing food processing and farming to put a total boycott on the ANZ Bank.
Acts of bastardry, like the ANZ has just executed, deserve nothing less!
Morrison should withdraw the licence of the ANZ Bank to operate.
I look forward to being contacted, thankyou and best regards,
Ian W
Ian helpfully included links showing that “Saving the Planet” doesn’t fit ANZ’s pattern of behaviour:
What’s wrong with overcharging, laundering and gouging a few customers on the way to saving the Earth?
International Investment London Forum 2020. The inaugural International Investment London Forum will look at where the industry is heading, the challenges and opportunities for the industry in the region, and how advisers, brokers and product providers are adapting to political and regulatory changes.The event will take place on Thursday, 30th April at the South Place Hotel, London.
ASIC sues ANZ for gouging customers – afr.com
ASIC says when the bank confessed it only identified around half the unfair transactions and did not characterise the conduct as significant. It alleges this was a breach of The Corporations Act …
The ANZ has sacked 200 bankers this year for misconduct | Business Insider
The royal commission has labelled the actions of the major four banks — including charging for services not provided — as dishonest and the result of greed.. Elliott is the third bank CEO to …
ANZ to shed more than $700m in loans to thermal coal projects by 2024, leaked document reveals – ABC News
Australia’s second-largest bank plans to cut lending to thermal coal projects by 75 per cent within the next five years, or about $700 million, a leaked document reveals.
9.6 out of 10 based on 83 ratings
The ANZ bankers declared this week that they are really in the business of saving the Earth, even if Australians didn’t vote for it.
I am reminded about two friends and their families who had gradually increased their landholding from one family farm to several in southern New South Wales, the first two farms were purchased when two sons became adults and completed their education, and they continued to acquire more land. They banked with ANZ and became one of many victims of bad advice from the bank regarding loans, that they convert their debt into Swiss francs to take advantage of the prevailing foreign exchange rate. In a very short period the exchange rate changed and resulted in their Australian dollar debt increasing significantly and to the point where repayment of more than annual interest was impossible. This is a very short version of their position. They were advised by senior legal counsel that they had a strong case against the bank for compensation. That was the good news. The bad news was that based on many examples of other complainants seeking compensation a court case would become too expensive to pursue as the bank’s tactic was to stall using the legal system and effectively force the legal costs up and up until the complainant withdrew.
“ANZ CEO Shayne Elliott finally admits documents they used in a court were “altered” (nice soft bank description for forgery) and gives an unreserved apology for 20 years of unconscionable misconduct. But then does not give any further explanation, or offer proper financial compensation, and instead offers a small token gesture “goodwill payment.””
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I forgot to include that my friends were unable to contact senior bank executives, they could not get past their local branch management and at that level received nothing more than sympathetic but meaningless comments.
They were much later put in contact with a person who had high level access to ANZ management and were assisted by that person to negotiate a deal that enabled them to sell their own properties to repay the debt, rather than the bank handling and controlling the sales.
At the time their farm business was very well managed financially and in terms of agriculture and productivity, and had never missed an interest payment on the debt.
I later discussed this with a senior bank executive from another bank and I was surprised at the lack of sympathy displayed, you borrow, you owe, pay or lose. No exceptions.
Not even for a viable business, well managed but caught out by flawed banking advice.
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Be a Shame if everyone went to the ANZ on Monday and closed their accounts .
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Robert said:
Indeed it would. Any action taken against the Manglement/Board of the bank will only be given high-level attention if it impacts on and harms the share price. That’s top Manglement’s “Prime Indicator.” If you want them to sit up and pay attention, that’s the point of attack.
Has a CCP-owned bank been buying shares?
Whatever: if enough customers vote for the bank’s new direction with their feet, I’m sure that Westpac, the National and the Commonwealth banks will welcome a massive transfer of customer funds away from ANZ into their own coffers … If the movement is sufficiently large, it might catch Morrison’s attention, if it hasn’t already.
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The only question is “how long before the others follow suit?” Is it worth it to switch banks or will the others also pull this stunt in due time? I dearly want to call them and close my accounts, but I also don’t want to waste my time.
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‘Elliott calmly insists the bank’s approach will have no impact on family farms but is only about making agri-businesses more “capital and energy-efficient” as part of assisting the bank’s 100 biggest carbon-emitting customers. He describes it as moving to “global best practice” rather than any radical new policy.’ (FinReview)
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Are they farms that breed flying pigs?
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In small ways they will bring about an agricultural evolution.
https://www.cefc.com.au/case-studies/no-fuss-solar-helps-farmer-cut-pumping-costs/
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Interesting watching a bank commit hari kiri…
For years no one could work out what thier logo meant….could it be an outline of the earth diety seated on a throne with a halo around the head, what the new agers call “Matriea” or new age “christ”?
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Lord-Maitreya has supernatural powers and can sway the masses, the ANZ might be involved but I can’t see it.
The agricultural evolution involves world best practice.
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I was being “gouged” by ANZ. I closed my account that I had for 40 years. Glad I did, now.
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I opened my account in 1979 and closed it early this year, due to them wanting everything done over the internet. There were 3 branches within 15 kms. that I used on occasions, but 2 of them are now closed. I was no orphan as many people left the bank complaining about lack of service, which only led to more branch closures.
My only ‘regret’ was not getting the gold bar I was offered. All I had to do was lift it one handed horizontally up to shoulder height and walk out the office door 2 steps behind. I did get the bar to waist height. This was in Fiji where the bank had had a shipment of 7 bars (armoured car, rifle wielding guards etc. Conditions inside the Branch were a little more relaxed and they “lost” one bar. The accountant (who’d offered me the “chance”) responded to claims of the tellers that they only had 6 bars by standing up from his desk saying “I’ll find it” and did so by tripping over it. He had it on the floor holding down some papers.
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Another company whose directors sacrifice their shareholders on the altar of global warming alarmism.
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Including the woke blokes, graduates that only have banking world experience and are so naive that lobby groups bombarding their place of employment with email threats (eg; “Mad F*cking Women” named group and/or manipulative shareholding sources) are able to scare them into classic bureaucratic group think reactions, business acumen zero.
And unfortunately the younger they are the worse they are.
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ANZ = Antifa’s National Zimbabwe bank
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Hi Jo, long time no see.
Unfortunately the Big 4 Banks, including the ANZ, don’t really give a stuff what we think anymore. The combination of the various changes to banking regulations back in 2018, plus the Currency (Restrictions on the Use of Cash) Bill 2019, plus the government’s intention to “reinvest” the three trillion dollars of our super funds into ruinables like solar and wind, mean they don’t have to.
The usual rent-seeking suspects will make a killing, the banks and the major unions (who control two thirds of the super funds) will get to lick up all the cream, and the average Aussie will end up getting shafted. Again.
Such is life.
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Hi MV! Indeed. great to see you pop in.
The Big Four Banks are supposed to be in competition but in reality we all know they move in lock step. And this is part of the problem. The Big are private, but also like an arm of government.
Does anyone know what being in The Big Four means? What privileges do they have compared to say — Bendigo Bank? Do they have the same kind of license?
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Say what you like but many of ANZs shareholders will be salivating with virtuous glee at news of this “initiative”
I really hope other banks leave them out on a limb and welcome new customers.
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They do welcome new customers, but many of them also have policies of not lending to mining companies. The entire industry needs a clean out in Australia.
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Unfortunately, the Big 4 operate as a cartel and Westpac, NAB and Commonwealth will soon announce their ‘climate positive lending initiatives’. Their management only mix in certain circles and all their contacts at cocktail parties and ‘workshop focus groups’ will applaud them for “Showing strategic foresight sensitive to the new environmental realities”. The CEO might get a seat on a major art gallery board. Ohhh, I’m squirming with juicy excitement!
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You are spot on about the unique role Banks have in society as they do have a licence to create money; they do that as agents of the ‘Monopolist’ Currency Issuer: the Federal Government.
As a follower of Money and Banking, I have noted a move toward Digital Currency, as Central Banks around the world are slowly changing their attitude toward the likes of Bitcoin. In the past and now I am against Bitcoin for the very reason it is not accepted for Tax; only the Dollar can be used for that payment. So until the Federal Government accepts Bitcoin for tax, it will remain a digital commodity – but like gold.
There is a great site called Real Vision where one of the main commentators, one Raoul Pal is now talking more and more about Digital Currencies and the slow acceptance toward it by central banks. With the behaviour of ANZ and their cohorts, that move could be accelerated, so Peer to Peer lending and and the Secondary Bond Market might take up the loss of funding. Big players that issue bonds are in a unique position of obtaining finance through Bond issuance and there would be plenty of lenders in that arena.
However, the small Mum and Dad players might have to resort to peer to peer.
The banks have a lot to answer for and my wife who is a shareholder of ANZ is not impressed with this rubbish.
To borrow a phrase from our favourite climate expert: How dare you ANZ?
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Isn’t this the bank that sold farmers mortgages cheap to their mates so they could foreclose on some outstanding properties for cheap .
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I have a sneaky suspicion that ANZ isn’t the only bank that is going to pull this shit. OTOH competing banks would want to to the street-smart thing and not do down that road.
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I have shares in ANZ and sadly they have lost about a third of their value in less than twelve months. ANZ has also greatly reduced the dividend and paid it 3 months late. Can you imagine if i decided to stop paying a loan or delayed paying it? I think it is time that all the banks were ditched in favour of community banks. My only problem with selling shares when they are so discounted is a: I lose money and b: some sleezebag buys them cheap.
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I am sick of people talking about “sustainable” business.
If business is allowed to operate in a free market and it thrives, by definition it’s sustainable. If the business practices are not sustainable, then it goes out of business.
It has nothing to do with pretending to try to change the weather by producing less CO2 or CH4 from cattle f@rts..
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I agree but tell that to our PM and Premiers and all you will get is stonewalling from them with perhaps a smirk.
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With the low interest rates and the insurance scam at its maximum, it is only the next ste0 in banks taking more for this foolishness on carbon selling that our Governments are all in on.
Quick, give your house and business to the banks, they’ll only take it in the end….
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Yep.
“You have 10 years before you lose your property and you’ll be happy you did.”
Klaus Schwab of The Great Reset fame.
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It’s not only banks that are practicing this CAGW nonsense. I’ve just received my superannuation fund half-yearly report and they are talking up “renewable” and “low carbon” investments. I fired off an email telling them what they could do with themselves. The only reason I haven’t closed my account is that, since I’m retired and over 60, my super income is tax-free. I’m getting sick and tired of government and institutions telling me what is best for me in this fantasyland of “climate doom”.
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Financial regulators, including Australia’s APRA and the RBA, are all singing from the same alarmist Paris 2015 song-sheet. Check the quote below from a 21 June 2019 speech. APRA board member Geoff Summerhayes compares climate risk to organised crime.
The RBA also wants an “orderly transition” to Zero Carbon Utopia. Anyone who gets in the way will be smashed like the silly savers have been with the Bank’s zero interest rate policy, designed to keep borrowing rates absurdly low for years to ensure our government can borrow as if there is no “payback” date:
https://www.apra.gov.au/news-and-publications/apra-executive-board-member-geoff-summerhayes-speech-to-international
“Speaking recently on the issue of cyber-crime, APRA Chair Wayne Byres called for closer collaboration within the financial sector to protect the national economy from organised crime[4]. I make the same argument in response to climate risk, adding, however, that this knowledge needs to be developed and shared across national borders given the consequences for the global economy. This collaboration is already taking place in the financial sector through organisations such as the UN Sustainable Insurance Forum, which I currently chair, and its banking equivalent, the Central Banks and Supervisors Network for Greening the Financial System’. All of us benefit from a strong and stable global economy; as RBA Deputy Governor Guy Debelle recently observed, financial stability is better served by an orderly transition to the low carbon economy rather than an abrupt disorderly one.”
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The only option left is to get out of all their scams and put your wealth beyond their reach. Buy Gold; physical, stuff you can hold, and then hold and hide it. As they blow the global economy into another great depression with worthless counterfeit digital dollars your wealth will be safe under the floorboards.
Then also make sure you can survive without the overpriced and unreliable electric grid. I heat my house (and cook) with 3 woodburning stoves. Yes i live rural and have plenty of fuel grade trees. I also have chickens, ducks, a few pigs and a milk cow for all our dairy needs. Together with fruit trees and a good vege garden I’m getting to a place where the elitists cant hurt me. And if it goes pear-shaped i also have 4 dogs and 2 guns. The dogs are good at hunting.
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The UK is building new nuclear power plant, albeit with many managerial cock-ups:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54754016
We shall find out whether PM Boris Johnson has got the message in the major document on energy policy later this month.
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To quote another Jo Nova commenter: when will this CO2 horseshit stop?
The whole premise of global warming aka climate change is based on the presumption that CO2 is dangerous to the health of the planet.
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Must be more money in ‘wokefulness’ than business these days. The other 3 banks are sure to follow.
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Now what another disgrace by the ANZ and the latest joke they have pulled is not processing wages and internet banking holding peoples money unlawfully for days on end what a joke and you have just lost myself my family and many other long term customers all caused by your continued lack of respect and communication with your customers this has been going on for years im a customer of over 20 years with this bank but I won’t be any longer well done ANZ Enough is Enough Time for a big change. You have lost me and many other customers fantastic way to run your bank. Sorry it’s not for me you are a joke congratulations on stuffing up your business regards very annoyed and never again gone forever
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Now what another disgrace by the ANZ and the latest joke they have pulled is not processing wages and internet banking holding peoples money unlawfully for days on end what a joke and you have just lost myself my family and many other long term customers all caused by your continued lack of respect and communication with your customers this has been going on for years im a customer of over 20 years with this bank but I won’t be any longer well done ANZ Enough is Enough Time for a big change. You have lost me and many other customers fantastic way to run your bank. Sorry it’s not for me you are a joke congratulations on stuffing up your business regards very annoyed and never again gone forever
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It s very good to see JoNova giving this latest ANZ boondoggle an airing as none of the other major Media outlets have touched on it. Media regards ‘Climate Change’ as holy ground and worships those acting as its high priests. Like the Biden corruption scandal major Media is leaving ANZ alone and under cover.
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I have a self managed super fund to avoid businesses that have “climate change” policies. I will be investing in companies in gas production as they are sure fire winners as long as they avoid wind and solar. If an Australian company goes into nuclear power I will have a piece of that too. After the US election and the dust settles I will be divesting the ANZ in my portfolio….unless the democrats win and then we are all screwed .
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Is this a reflection of the BlackRock Gates/Gore approach to climate change? Chasing the money with a short term view and based on incomplete trendy woke climate “facts” …not the longer term view that one expects of our financial “managers”.
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I’m always stunned at the mixed bag of drivel the comments section of any article sees. Questioning global warming? Invoking the CCP? Claiming an attack against so many industries? Sheesh. Last year, they were the worst bank as they hadn’t done anything to try to limit support to coal rich industries, and now, it’s gone too far. How about, instead of complaining, you suggest what you would prefer and see how that stands up to some criticism… especially as we stare down the barrel of increasing rates of ice melt – be it entirely anthropogenic or not. Do we just sit on our hands?
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Yes. Sit on your hands because humans havent and cant change the climate, anymore than they can change earthquakes. Oh sorry, you’re in the anti earthquake religion i guess. Read some science.
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ANZ corporate song?
The one that starts
“I’ve shares in the very best companies,
In tramways, tobacco and tin
In brothels in Rio Janeiro
My God how the money rolls in”
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So, ANZ are into the carbon credits business. Well that explains it all. And I guess the management bonus calculation system has a carbon credit component as well, it could even be weighted heavily. Plus ca change….
Calling ANZ management a pack of coat trailing scumbags is a bit light on to my mind but it will have to do here I guess.
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PS:- After seeing the evidence to the banking royal commission, that coming out of the icare enquiry, $5,000 watches to AusPost seniour managers when I reckon they al;ready had handsome bonus top ups and the rest of the managerial class’s self rewarding largesse, it seems pretty clear that we have regressed to something like the arrogant incompetence of a privileged class that brought about the retreat from Kabul, the early disasters in the Boer War through to the slaugher of the western front in WW1. Plus ca change… plus ca change.
Forget about CO2 causing ‘climate change’, the really substantive issue surely is the tight relationship between privileged classes and incompetence.
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The moderators at The Australian rejected my letter below, as did the gatekeepers of the ‘comments’ section of that newspaper. Perhaps it is not safe these days to call a bank ‘woke’ and ‘limp-wristed’. Letter as follows:
Borrowers and investors alike who currently are customers of the ANZ bank should vote with their feet and find another bank that is less woke, less hypocritical and better informed about climate science. The ANZ wants to emulate the EU’s commitment to becoming the first carbon-neutral continent by 2050, and it wants to invest in battery storage, wind turbines and hydrogen, not realising that each of these activities involves vast amounts of mining and use of fossil fuels, creating more CO2 than they are supposedly trying to save. As a scientist I know that the most abundant greenhouse gas is water vapour, that there is no dangerous warming of our planet and no increase in dangerous weather events. Carbon dioxide is just a harmless gas, not a pollutant, and one can only assume that Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Tim Flannery and the occasional unicorn provide all the science to the hapless and woke managers at this limp-wristed excuse for a bank.
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Maybe if you use precise and meaningful words you’d do better.
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GA, we now know you moderate for The Oz in your spare time.
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you wrote perhaps and I wrote maybe
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The following is the best 10 minute summary I have heard about the “deep state” including bankers and their intentions for stockpiling carbon credits ready for the big “payday” after 2030. https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=emb_title&v=Bkar4jn3JWw
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I, on behalf of my son, actually had a win against the ANZ. Son was in partnership with another, who was bleeding their company. So son went to ANZ, asked that the account be frozen (debt $6k, cancelled the ABN showing him as part owner and asked that his guarantee covering the company debt be cancelled. A few days later, he was advised that ANZ had allowed the debt to increase to $34k, and then they threatened to foreclose on him. Son saw the local business manager and got not satisfaction, so I wrote to Shane Elliot stating that under banking rules, my son could not be held liable for any debt over $6k, and threatened to take case to the Banking Ombudsman unless they wrote off the whole debt. (38 yrs. with Bank NSW/Westpac helped – we were taught banking practice!. In the end the debt was written off. The point is, there are a lot of illiterate bankers out there now, and customers are given misinformation to cover the ANZ’s arse. Most banks, in my opinion, are dishonest and their staff are not properly trained.
Interesting that ANZ is the ONLY bank not to sign up to Bank at Post. Too stingy – and happy to close country branches and leave customers to fend for themselves.
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Well done Kim. You are definitely correct in saying that many bankers are untrained and ignorant in financial matters. I recently had a victory over my bank (not ANZ) regarding interest repayments on a loan. It saved me about $5K in repayments. As I’ve always said…’Banks are a necessary evil in our capitalist-style world’.
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