Briefs: unions target ANZ, US to surcharge GSIBs

Bernard Kellerman
  • The Finance Sector Union said ANZ bank had rejected its proposals "to settle the enterprise bargaining talks and pay staff the increases earned in 2014." According to the union, ANZ "described the situation as 'an impasse'." The FSU wants pay rises, which it contends are already due under performance reviews, to be honoured and also wants the "impasse" referred to the Fair Work Commission. In a parallel dispute across the Tasman, the FIRST Union is pushing ANZ NZ for a five per cent pay rise "across the board" this year and next year as compensation for "reductions to their conditions."

  • The largest bank holding companies in the United States will be surcharged anywhere between one per cent and 4.5 per cent of their total risk-weighted assets, should they be identified as GSIBs. The US Federal Reserve identified eight GSIBs: Bank of America, The Bank of New York Mellon, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, State Street and Wells Fargo. Fed governor Daniel Tarullo said the proposed rule would strengthen the Basel standard, as it applied in the United States, both by raising the surcharges to levels "that would yield greater net economic benefits" and by "explicitly incorporating a factor for determining those surcharges that lay at the heart of the recent financial crisis." The proposal builds on a GSIB capital surcharge framework agreed to by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.