Bank that sacked thousands of Aussies hit by $1.1 billion blow

Friday, 31 October 2025 16:55

ANZ has warned investors to brace for a more than $1.1 billion blow to its bottom line when it releases its half-year updates in a little over a week.

The big four bank announced this morning its second-half profit for 2025 will be impacted by several "significant items", totalling a combined $1.109 billion after tax.

A large proportion of that is associated with the decision taken last month to slash 4500 jobs – 1000 of which were contractors, while the remaining 3500 were full-time employees.

ANZ said the cost of those redundancies will hit $585 million, although it drops to $414 million once tax is taken into account.

When it announced the job cuts, ANZ said customer-facing frontline roles would only see a limited impact, and chief executive Nuno Matos insisted the move was necessary to ensure the bank's future success.

"We are operating in a rapidly evolving and highly competitive banking environment," he said at the time.

"As we continue our strategic review, we are eliminating duplication and complexity, stopping work that doesn't support our priorities, and sharpening our focus on improving our non-financial risk management practices across the bank."

Also included in ANZ's $1.1 billion blow is $271 million in fines and costs for years of unconscionable conduct, including failing to respond to customer hardship notices and making misleading statements about interest rates.

The bank agreed to pay a record $240 million fine for the conduct after it was sued by financial watchdog ASIC.

The Federal Court still needs to approve that fine, and ANZ said this morning it had also accrued $31 million in costs related to the matter.

Following this morning's announcement, ANZ's share price fell by a little over half a per cent to $36.65, although that's still far higher than the roughly $33 it was trading at before September's job cuts were revealed.

The bank will post its half-year earnings on November 10.

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