ANZ has announced it will no longer offer its Prime Access financial advice service to new customers and will phase it out for current customers over the next 18 months.
The banking group’s decision was announced by ANZ managing director Private Banking and Advice, Mike Norfolk who said the move was part of a change in approach by the company.
“We are determined to keep making improvements to the way we offer customers high quality and accessible advice,” he said. “We know we need to think differently about how we do this, which is why we are taking a new approach to providing our customers ongoing advice and phasing out Prime Access as part of that.”
Norfolk said ANZ financial planners would talk to current Prime Access customers during their annual review to understand their ongoing needs and how the new advice model could best work for them.
The move comes after ANZ unveiled its plan to improve financial planning 12 months ago, which included the removal of all sales incentives for financial planning bonuses and speeding up customer remediation.
It said Prime Access was first offered in 2003 and that ANZ started a fee reimbursement approach in 2015 for customers that did not receive an annual documented review as part of their Prime Access package between 2006 and 2013. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission accepted this approach as part of an enforceable undertaking in 2018.
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