Board Areas of Focus

This year the Board and its Committees have undertaken key strategic, governance and oversight activities, including:

Strategy and purpose-led transformation

  • Conducting annual Board strategy session, focused on the long-term success of the company and learning lessons from past experience
  • Regularly discussing ANZ’s strategic priorities, including the refinement and implementation of them, with the Chief Executive Officer
  • Regularly discussing the progress of ANZ’s transformation of its Australian business and ANZ’s approach to it
  • As part of the Board’s visit to New Zealand, receiving detailed reports covering the entire NZ business and its direction
  • Continuing its focus on ANZ’s corporate culture, including reviewing results and key themes of ANZ’s culture assessments and ANZ’s staff engagement survey
  • Providing oversight of the design and implementation of ANZ’s redesign and simplification of remuneration and reward and Accountability and Consequences Frameworks, including reviewing and providing input into the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s executive remuneration proposals
  • Discussing future disruptive technologies and potential business impact on, and involvement by, ANZ

Customer

  • Approving the development of a new customer focused section of the Board agenda, including in relation to:
    • Customer satisfaction, complaints and remediation
    • Regulatory changes impacting customers
    • ANZ’s approach to marketing and specific marketing initiatives
  • Providing oversight of ANZ’s approach to customer remediation and complaints
  • Participating in a detailed review of ANZ’s customer service lighthouse initiative, including meeting with participating front line staff
  • Reviewing ANZ’s approach to communicating customer initiatives to the front line

Governance and regulatory

  • Reviewing and endorsing ANZ’s operating and strategic plans
  • Regularly discussing business momentum matters
  • Regularly discussing merger and acquisitions matters, including in relation to the progress of the transactions regarding the sale of its Wealth business
  • Providing oversight of capital management matters, including in relation to proposals from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority and current and future capital management options for ANZ
  • Reviewing ANZ’s governance processes for the preparation of its financial statements

Financial

  • Reviewing and approving ANZ’s self-assessment of governance, culture and accountability practices and subsequent roadmap of remediation activities
  • Providing oversight of ANZ’s response to the final report of the Royal Commission
  • Participating in deep dives into how ANZ approaches compliance with numerous prudential standards
  • Creating a new Nomination and Board Operations Committee, consisting of all Non-Executive Directors, to focus on the Board’s own composition and operations
  • Embedding the increased remit of the Ethics, Environment, Social and Governance Committee to focus on ESG matters
  • Reviewing and implementing improvements to Board Committee reporting practices on technology related matters, including in relation to technology stability and simplicity, cloud and data governance and information and cyber security.

In addition to regular meetings of the Board in Melbourne and Sydney, the Board also met in the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand and have participated in a number of customer and employee facing events. The Board will also have meetings in regional New South Wales and Western Australia during the remainder of the 2019 calendar year, with a focus on customer and employee engagement.

Governance