\u201cOnce we became aware of the issue, we commenced a review, self-reported to the FMA, and took the product off sale.<\/p>\n
\u201cTreating our customers fairly and delivering good customer outcomes is at the heart of what we do every day. We are committed to maintaining effective policies, processes, systems and controls to help ensure this kind of issue does not occur again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The issue occurred when BNZ updated its terms and conditions in 2014 to state that interest would be calculated daily.<\/p>\n
However, from December 2014 to February 2024, for the non-profit accounts, BNZ calculated interest using a different method based on the lowest monthly balance, resulting in customers receiving less interest than they were entitled to.<\/p>\n
BNZ became aware of the issue in September 2023 after a customer query.<\/p>\n
FMA\u2019s head of enforcement Margot Gatland said financial institutions must ensure their terms and customer communications are accurate and reflect how products work in practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this case, BNZ\u2019s representations about how interest was calculated were inconsistent with the actual approach taken, leading to customer harm.\u201d<\/p>\n
BNZ agreed to pay $2.6m to the Crown through an enforceable undertaking. <\/p>\n
It also made a commitment to developing and maintaining effective policies, processes, systems and controls to support good customer outcomes and prevent such issues from occurring in the future. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cOnce we became aware of the issue, we commenced a review, self-reported to the FMA, and took the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[23283,14882,10106,74,3469,1643,28500,11421,138,73814,10808,4381,12471,6963,12469,702,1132,12936,76566,111,139,26328,69,2744,6122,544,61,80],"class_list":["post-481250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-23283","tag-accounts","tag-admitting","tag-after","tag-agreed","tag-bank","tag-bnz","tag-breached","tag-business","tag-calculated","tag-crown","tag-customers","tag-dealing","tag-fair","tag-interest","tag-it","tag-million","tag-misleading","tag-misled","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nonprofit","tag-nz","tag-pay","tag-rules","tag-some","tag-to","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}