Major bank reveals remuneration changes

An ANZ spokesperson told Mortgage Business that discretionary incentive payments will now be based on a banker’s “whole-of-role” performance relative to their peers.

It is understood that the new incentive plan, which becomes effective 1 April this year, will use a ‘balanced scorecard’ approach that gives a higher weighting to customer service.

The changes come just days after the release of the interim Sedgwick Review, which noted that most banks have adopted a ‘scorecard’ approach to paying bonuses and incentives to staff.

“The scorecard records performance against a number of elements or measures. These may include sales, customer satisfaction and/or the extent of compliance with policies, procedures or behavioural standards,” it said.

“The types of measures used and the weights assigned to them in arriving at an overall score are presumably designed to send signals about the relative importance attached to each measure.”

Mortgage Business understands that ANZ will also be scrapping accelerator payments, an arrangement whereby a higher rate of reward is earned with higher levels of performance e.g. increasing volumes of sale.

“This new way of determining incentive payments will better recognise those who are performing strongly across all aspects of their role, with emphasis on both objectives (what is achieved) and values (how it is achieved),” the ANZ spokesperson said.

“This will increase the focus and weighting on the customer as an important measure," they said. "The changes do not affect mortgage brokers in the bank’s third party channel.”

[Related: Remuneration report exposes 'inconvenient truth']