ANZ Private wins Best Private Bank in New Zealand for Customer Service

[Text on screen: Excellence, recognised. Service, unrivalled. ANZ Private wins Best Private Bank for Customer Service in New Zealand at the PWM/The Banker Global Private Banking Awards 2025.]

[Text on screen: Glenn Stevenson General Manager, ANZ Private]

Dave: Glenn, welcome. First of all, congratulations.

[Text on screen: Dave Gascoigne Head of Investor Marketing]

ANZ Private has been awarded the best private bank for customer service.

Glenn: Thanks Dave, thanks.

Dave: Obviously, we've had a good run with seven years on the trot with Private Bank of the Year and now we move to a customer service award. Congratulations.

Glenn: Yeah, thank you. Really pleased.

Dave: There must be 30, 40, 50 private banks across Australia, New Zealand. What sets us apart in the customer service space?

Glenn: Yeah, it's a really good question. I mean, clients invariably tell us these three things they love about what we do for them.

First and foremost, I think it's right to say that we are a relationship business, and it's about trusted relationships. And I guess why that's important is because essentially there’s various aspects to our business, but it's that element of understanding our clients a lot more deeply in what's going on in their lives.

Dave: Their situation changes, their wealth journey changes.

Glenn: Correct, correct. And it's good to know that there is, you know, an individual or a group of individuals that is across those nuances and can help them navigate that, whether they be, you know, a young professional who is accumulating wealth that are at a rapid rate of knots.

Or a client that might have sold a business, sold a farm, won the lottery, you name it, but actually needs some support around putting some structure around how they might utilise that wealth and decumulate over time in their retirement years, potentially.

Dave: Absolutely. So they can rely on our customer service, our speed, speed in which we get back to them, we service their account.

Glenn: Yeah, correct.

Dave: And obviously, I mean, one stat I've got here: we've maintained 93% customer satisfaction. I mean, that's…

Glenn: I know, it's fantastic.

Dave: That's enormous.

Glenn: I know, I mean, at the end of the day, our business has a foundation of fantastic customer service and client service. And so it's really nice that that's come through in the survey. Predominantly, that is what they expect, but we work really hard to deliver on that.

So it's little simple things like, you know, when they phone us and they want to have a conversation, actually, we pick up the phone really quickly. We're able to do the things in a really quick and convenient manner for them.

Dave: We're talking under 10 seconds or so.

Glenn: Exactly, to answer the phone, exactly right. So, it's quite a different proposition. But also, they have, you know, there's a lot more complexity with, with a lot of our clients in the way that they have things set up. A lot of the times maybe it's around family trusts and various entities in that regard.

And so it requires, these days, particularly in the banking sense, that that complexity takes a little bit of navigation internally for us to make things work for our clients.

And our clients resoundingly say that actually we do a fantastic job of it. We take all that complexity away from them and just get what they want done, done. And they, love us for that.

Dave: That tells us they do love us. And what are we hearing from Private Bankers around the country with regards to the customer service?

Glenn: Yeah, they’re getting some very similar feedback almost in real time.

The other thing that sort of sticks out for me is that a lot of our clients, which our Private Bankers speak about a lot, is that they love the fact that we're connected to the biggest bank in New Zealand. So the advantage that gives other than just rolling off the tongue and it sounds really nice, is the fact that we are extremely well connected, not only internally, but also across the market.

And, and what it means is that, you know, our proposition invariably has three planks to it. One is an investment proposition, one is that we can support our clients with lending. And the other side of it is that we can support them with banking. A lot of our clients have all three and we we're able to help them with that.

The other part of it, which is something I really like and where the fantastic service feedback comes in, is that, you know, many of our clients need quite specific and maybe technical advice around some sort of complexity in their lives. It might be something around inheritance or tax or something to do with their family trust.

Now, by being part of the biggest bank in New Zealand, we're just really well connected. So we might not be able to advise them internally within Private, but we sure as eggs know somebody in the market that they could talk to, to receive the advice they need. And so we refer clients off, you know, all over the place, which holds us and them in really good stead.

Dave: Fantastic, fantastic. Well, on behalf of the rest of ANZ, congratulations.

Glenn: Thanks.

Dave: If you're going to win one award, customer service clearly is the one you want.

Glenn: Exactly.

Dave: Anything else to say? Passing comments?

Glenn: Private bank and our business here at ANZ, you know, is fantastic. We meet, you know, I'm lucky enough, like a lot of our staff to meet some really fabulous and wonderful clients, you know, who have some really fantastic stories of how they've built their wealth, how they've supported NZ Inc, you name it. And so I think it's fabulous to have our organisation here at ANZ well connected in with that and supporting them with the next phases in their lives.

Dave: Brilliant. Should be proud.

Glenn: Thanks.