ANZ opens digital offering

Australian and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) has announced that its upcoming new digital banking service, ANZ Plus, is now open for customer registration, with the official launch expected from early 2022. 

Intended as a “complete transformation from traditional banking” and available to both ANZ retail customers and businesses, the soon-to-be-released product will initially exist as a savings and transaction account, providing a card and a mobile app with a range of financial management tools. 

These tools are said to include “detailed transaction data”, alert functions for incoming or outgoing funds, the option to interact with an “ANZ Plus Coach”, the ability to set and track spending goals, as well monthly summaries. 

ANZ has stated that while it will initially start with savings and transaction accounts, new services will continually be released through ANZ Plus.

ANZ Group executive digital and Australia transformation Maile Carnegie said: “ANZ Plus will completely reinvent what our customers expect from us with leading design and engineering capabilities underpinning a new way for customers to achieve their financial goals.

“We have made significant progress on building the underlying platform in 2021 and it will soon be ready for our customers, which is very exciting. 

“ANZ Plus will start with savings and transaction products and we will add to that progressively.”

In October, ANZ chief executive Shayne Elliott told Mortgage Business one intended expansion of ANZ Plus – which at the time was the group’s second priority after improving the performance of its home loan portfolio – would be the launch of a digital home loan product. 

“It’s not something you can turn on a dime. It’s quite complicated to do,” Mr Elliott said.

“And as we’ve seen, even with startups and fintechs starting with no legacy, it’ll take a little bit of time to get there.”