• Contact
  • Feedback
Banking Day
  • News
  • Topics
    • All Topics
    • Briefs
    • Major Banks
    • Authorised deposit-taking institutions
    • Insurance, funds and super
    • Payments, mobile & wallets
    • Consumer lending
    • Mortgages
    • Business lending
    • Finance regulation
    • Debt capital markets
    • Ratings agencies
    • Equity capital markets
    • Professional services
    • Work & career
    • Foreign news
    • Other topics
  • Free Trial
  • Subscribe
  • Resources
    • Industry events
  • About us
    • About Banking Day
    • Advertise
    • Feedback
    • Contact Banking Day
  • Search
  • Login
  • My account
    • Account settings
    • User Admin
    • Logout

Login or request a free trial

ANZ claims social justice warrior status

07 November 2017 6:06PM
Baby boomer directors and senior executives at ANZ have tapped the social justice lingo of the protest era to word up the bank's messaging to stakeholders in the 2017 annual report.According to chief executive Shayne Elliott, ANZ's core purpose is "to help shape a world where people and communities thrive".Elliott also pledges to make the bank fairer: "I want us to be known as a company that's respected for being fair and balanced in the way we think about issues and for taking action to meet the expectations of our customers, employees and society".On page 2 of the report directors explain they want the Australian community to value and trust the bank, but concede that "for this to happen we know that things need to change at ANZ".On the next page the board even tries to downplay the significance of the A$6.9 billion cash profit: "A strong financial performance each year, while critical to the success of the bank, is not of itself the whole story and reflects little about who we are as an organisation and the role we play in society."In the supplementary annual review, directors also highlight their desire to embed respect for human rights in business decisions."We need to acknowledge previous poor practice and raise standards across all our activities," the bank states in the annual review. "We are expected to strengthen standards on issues such as human rights and environmental sustainability."There were fifteen references to "human rights" in the annual review compared with only eight mentions of "performance rights".The spirit of social justice sweeping the bank appears, however, to have had little impact on sensitive details of the directors' remuneration report.Almost every member of the senior executive team collected more than $2 million in cash and incentives last year, with Elliott receiving a handsome return of more than $6.2 million.The next best earner was Mark Whelan, the head of the institutional division, who raked in $4.47 million.Chief financial officer Michelle Jablko collected cash and incentives worth $3.24 million, while Alexis George - who is managing the offload of the bank's wealth management businesses - snared $1.5 million for her first ten months in a senior executive role.

I'm a returning subscriber

*
Password reset *
Login

Request a free trial

  • Emailing you the news at 7am.
  • Covering core lending and funding issues, strategy, payments, regulation, risk management, IT, marketing and more.
  • Original news and summaries of major stories from other media – ditch your newspaper subscriptions.
  • Focused on banking and finance, saving you the time spent wading through newspapers and other services.
  • With reporting from former editors and senior writers from the AFR and The Australian.
  • Configured for your phone, laptop and PC.
Free trial Banking Day
Stay Ahead. Stay Informed.
Concise. Candid. Provocative.
Get the daily banking news that matters
Banking Day – Your trusted source for independent financial insights.
Subscribe Now

Consumer lending

  • Latitude, Harvey Norman liable for interest free GO card con

Copyright © WorkDay Media 2003-2025.

Banking Day is a WorkDay Media publication

WorkDay Media Unit Trust

  • Privacy policy
  • Terms of access and use