(Reuters) – ANZ, Australia’s fourth-biggest bank, said its initial assessment of a distressed bond sale sparked a regulatory investigation that concluded it did not engage in market manipulation, although the bank admitted to unacceptable errors in data reporting.
Earlier this month, the company’s chief executive said ANZ planned to “get to the bottom” of allegations of misconduct raised against its bond trading operations and would hold people accountable for any wrongdoing.
Media reports indicated that the lender had overstated the value of government bonds it traded by more than A$50 billion ($33.81 billion) over a single year.
The financial company also confirmed that it had provided incorrect data on the monthly secondary bond turnover rate for the 2022-23 financial year and reported the same to the Australian Office of Financial Management in August 2023.
The company said the data errors were caused by a combination of issues including process and data extraction errors on the part of ANZ Bank.
