Nick Coyle - Standing Up To Banking Abuse In New Zealand

A story of power imbalance and abuse by ANZ Bank

Nick Coyle outlines his disturbing experience of dealing with the bureaucratic heartlessness of the banking system in New Zealand.

Nick is a brave man who's showing Kiwis how to stand up to blatant bullying and unreasonable banking intrusion into his life. The hard truth, in our currently over-regulated New Zealand, is that it's only when we stand together as a People, and demand of these corporations that they behave with respect towards Kiwis, that things will start to get back to how they should be in this country.

Nick’s story is a story of an abuse of power, by one overbearing individual who cannot be easily called to account by the public whom he is meant to serve, within one of the big five New Zealand’s banks: namely, ANZ - the Australian-owned behemoth.

Many Kiwis, and others around the world, are now noticing a big increase in abuse of power by banking institutions, who seem to regard the clients they once had to serve, as mere pawns in the government-approved bullying of banking customers.

This bullying attitude has been sanctioned under the guise of AML, or Anti-Money Laundering, a very detailed and frankly Orwellian banking regulation scheme which has ramped up hugely in recent years. It has been allowed to bloat out to the point where it now amounts to a system that treats all of us essentially as potential covert terrorists.

While there are important safety standards that DO need to be respected when it comes to money transactions, the truth is that most human beings are not engaging in criminal money laundering activities. We just want to live our lives and to move our monies in privacy and without government viewing of every detail of our daily, and annual, legitimate transacting and banking decision-making.

AML regulations however, now seem to be on a fast track to skewing out of balance for the individual. If one makes a small mistake, or does not operate exactly in the Bank-approved way, then suddenly and often inexplicably, a faceless bureaucrat within the hugely intimidating banking structure, can make a decision that can have devastating consequences on business, family life and freedom. This is simply not acceptable, and we Kiwis must now band together to let the banks know we will no longer tolerate this bullying and intimidation.

Remember, your bank account is only as good as the bank’s risk appetite to have you as a customer. Yet the bank would not exist without their millions of individual customers. They forget who has the ultimate power, if we were ever to choose to withdraw from one or other specific bank, en masse. Instead, these hubristic institutions like to think that they have all the power over our money, and therefore over our lives and our liberty.

Nick’s story is shocking in part because he had an exemplary record with his bank. He put $5,000,000 (five MILLION) of business through ANZ, and has fastidiously organised and tracked all his business dealings with the bank. Then suddenly, because of a $9,000 (a mere nine THOUSAND) ‘issue’ (with which Nick was fully able and willing to comply), the ANZ decided to flex their power and demand he turn over his financial records within an unreasonable time-frame or , as they told him by email, he would risk closure of his long-time customer account with ANZ.

At the time, Nick was in the midst of completing his company’s financial records for the year, which was no small task for an extremely in-demand businessman running numerous operations. Nevertheless, Nick signalled that he was happy to comply with ANZ’s pressing and surprising demands, but he explained that he needed a bigger window to be able to get the paperwork they supposedly urgently required. A perfectly reasonable request for more time.

ANZ did not accept his request. They demanded Nick’s compliance, issuing him with a date by which they would be totally shutting his accounts if he did not agree to their harsh time frame. It was a curt and disrespectful reply from the ANZ keyboard bureaucrat, containing an unreasonably short time period for compliance.

By way of aside, Nick points out the startling figure of $7.3 billion of profit per annum, which is produced by the overseas-owned New Zealand banks.

It’s worth remembering that this vast amount is then gouged out of our local economy each year. It is gobbled up by the insatiably-greedy offshore banking head offices. He describes his personal business and success totalling $5.2 million of transactions, as barely a speck on the gargantuan spectrum of banking profit for ANZ. The individual is made to feel small and insignificant by these monolithic banks.

This is analogous to how the faceless government bureaucracies, and greed-driven, out-of-touch politicians, are now treating us, The People: as if we are mere masses to be herded and taxed and over-regulated and bullied and lied to and spied on-all in the name of ‘helping’ us.

The bank was dictating to Nick, who had been a longtime, and good customer of ANZ for many years.

“You supply this information by this date, or your accounts will get shut down.”

There was no right of reply, no ability to question, no one to agree to a meeting and definitely no show or respect towards a loyal ANZ customer. This is a bank that has forgotten its humanity.

Nick is a financial advisor, and he is more savvy than most of us in dealing with the big banks, and yet in this situation, he was left feeling the power dynamic was completely out-of -balance.

“They do not care about you”, Nick accurately states, in seeking to describe how the big impersonal banks actually view us, the customer.

“Gone are the days where you know the Bank Manager and the branch; those days do not exist anymore.”

Go woke, go….

Transparency, according to Nick’s unemotional and grounded viewpoint as a businessman, is a critical issue for Kiwis. We need transparency from our banks towards us, rather than all the AML bullying which puts The People under the full spotlight, while these enormous financial institutions continue to accrue such colossally massive profits year in, year out - while seeming to be impervious to being called to account.

Fractional reserve banking is the key concept here, as Nick explains:

I don't know if people actually know what they want when it comes to banking, but transparency is probably a good start because people don't understand, when they've got $10,000 in the bank, what's actually happening to that money.

And you know, when the New Zealand branch…of ANZ, kicks out a $7.3 billion profit for a year! Like, what?

So basically, if you deposit $10,000 into the bank, the bank can use that money, right?That's technically theirs to lend out.

They also have what they call Fractional-Reserve Banking, where they only need to hold a certain amount of cash in the bank, and they can lend against it.

So your $10,000 is lent out multiple times, out into the community…often being charged at personal loan- 16% credit card, 13% if it's a low rate, 19% if it's a higher rate.

So mortgage rates are the biggest problem at the moment where that's 7%, for example, and people are getting wrecked, basically, because they can't afford it.

But the banks are making huge amounts of profit.

{Liz} And of that $10,000 I put into the bank, that's now lent out by the bank and they profit from it, I don't get any of that?

{Nick} No, you'll be lucky to get anything. And that depends on what account it's in. If it's in a General Savings Account, probably 2%. Term Investment [Account], maybe I saw one the other day for 5.5%…

So 5.5%. And that's per annum, right?

So, on $10,000, not much.

Returning to describing his experience of bullying by ANZ, Nick talks of being turned down multiple times, when he sought a simple one-on-one meeting with the managers who were calling the shots on his case.

He was told “We don’t do one-on-one meetings”. This attitude exemplifies those lurking banking bureaucrats who are willing to wield inordinate power over Kiwi lives, but who do not have the courage or decency to step out from behind the safety of their computer screens. Our current banking system is tending to look away from acts of excessive financial force, and blatant disrespect towards their customers. Not all the banking officers are willing to behave so egregiously, but the numbers of those who are, and who are getting away with it, are growing. They need to be hauled back into line, and to learn respect for the Customer, upon whom their very job and livelihood depends.

It is here, dear reader, that we encounter the main antagonist in this story of abuse of power by the ANZ bank.

After all attempts at a reasonable meeting were declined, Nick took his case to the Banking Ombudsman. Sadly the resultant Report was factually incorrect. When the beleaguered Nick told them it was wrong, they sided with the bank. Let’s recall that this whole bank-driven drama was over purchases of a mere $9000 worth of Cryptocurrency. Nick needed 4-6 weeks to complete the financial statements he had to do, and at all times, he indicated he was willing to be co-operative. He simply needed more time.

It’s no surprise that Nick was by now frustrated with the bureaucratic processes that precluded him from actually getting to the bottom of the specious issues raised by the ANZ, and causing such time-consuming disruption in his busy life. Yet he remained calm and resolute and respectful throughout his dealings with these banking busy-bodies.

James Willis was appointed to his case.

Willis works for ‘ANZ Customer Due Diligence Team’ - ironic, given that his work was not customer-centred in any way. He point-blank refused to review Nick’s case, and he then compounded his already-arrogant attitude towards this diligent ANZ client by asking for further, and irrelevant, and oddly obscure information - so obscure that it did not, in fact, exist!

Willis was asking for financial information from a Crypto Exchange, an Exchange that does not provide financial information such as this. When it became obvious that the requested information did not exist, and that his demands on Nick were both highly irregular and unreasonable, James Willis then refused to back down and apologise.

As if drunk on his power, Willis- a ‘customer service’ manager - then informed Nick that he would not communicate further with him! He seemed to revel in the power he thought he had over Nick, this hard-working man whose life carried the trappings of both diligence and success. Could this possibly have been a pursuit of Nick based on jealousy? We will never know. But the pursuit by Willis, through his unswerving demands and timetable, was harsh and irrational. He issued Nick with a brutal ultimatum: his accounts would be shut by the end of business on the 31st of January, if he did not comply.

The final straw came at 8am on that deadline day. Willis did not even wait until end of business at 5 pm. He must have ordered that Nick’s accounts be expunged at the start of the day, as a final show of his ‘fiefdom power’ within ANZ. By 8.01, Nick’s accounts had been wiped from existence. Everything went dead - long before the given deadline. Nick could access nothing of his funds, or of his account details. How’s that for a vast, and deeply wrong, power imbalance?

As Liz Gunn points out:

That is a man sending a message.

Look at me.

Look at the power I've got.

I can just bully you and get away with it.

And exactly that.

I can do whatever I want.

… but James here has clearly signaled that he was not up to the task of treating a customer with respect.

In this interview, Nick calls for James Willis’ resignation. He is obviously incapable of exercising his position in ANZ in a measured, sober, and fair-minded way.

We are FreeNZ Media second that call.

This man must be held up to all New Zealand as the exemplar of how our banking employees should NOT behave, and as a reminder to our banking system that we The People will now call you to account, where you turn a blind eye to such power misuse and excesses by your lowly employees.

However, in his decency and magnanimity, Nick does find a silver lining. He praises another employee, Chris, who “worked tirelessly” to assist Nick in recouping his ‘disappeared’ money which had been wiped out by the machinations and ego games of James Willis.

What is it that would now help Nick to put this whole negative experience with ANZ’s James Willis, behind him?

Nick would expect, at a bare minimum, an apology from ANZ. He had earlier laughed at the miserly offering of $200 in recompense from ANZ, an amount barely able to register on the stress and time-cost scale to Nick, of having to fast track the financial statements, and the substantial financial cost to him, as well as the sheer time wastage on Nick’s part. He estimates the overall cost to him of this wasted exercise by ANZ, sits at up to $10,000. Weighed against ANZ’s paltry and insulting offer of $200 to make him go away, one can clearly see how out-of-touch with the gravity of their bullying customer ‘treatment’, is this Australian megalith bank.

As long as James Willis remains in his dictatorial positioning within ANZ’s management structure, it’s clear that this won’t have been the first time, nor will it be the last time, that a situation like this arises in which Willis causes trauma to other, once loyal customers.

Nick highlights that this would have never happened had he been allowed a face- to-face appointment with the bureaucrats in ANZ who thought they could treat him so dismissively and unreasonably. It could have been easily resolved, in a civilised meeting space between adult human beings! Remember that the ANZ had already highlighted that he had done nothing wrong in the first place.

There is a distinct air of cowardice from these faceless corporations in refusing to meet their customers in person. This case must surely make them call their staff to heel and tell them to treat customers with respect? With enough pressure via text and email, to the addresses below this article and in the video, we feel that the bank will have to take this seriously. So please write in a strongly-worded message that you also expect better behaviour from ANZ employees.

Nick has a few tips for dealing with the banks, should a similar situation crop up for any of us in future.

• Be fastidious with all record-keeping (financial, communications etc)

• Comply with their requests, as best you can.

• Stay calm

• Know the processes i.e lodging an official complaint - Start with the bank complaints forum; next level is to go to the Banking Ombudsman; the final level is to take your complaint to the FMA (Financial Markets Authority).

These complaints can be reviewed at a later date too. The system allows for revisiting of a case in future.

Nick remains steadfast in trying to help the systems to run as intended, rather than staying silent while they are overrun by bad actors such as James.

Nick is experienced from his years of working in the financial industry. He has never broken the rules, but has been in trouble for calling out others who’ve broken the rules. He is not afraid to call others out on unethical behaviour.

Nick wants to help Kiwis with their financial attitudes, and understandings. As he points out:

Yeah, well, that's the biggest problem at the moment. We've got record high interest rates … we're at the highest we've been in quite some time.

We've got people that are struggling to make their mortgages. We've got a whole bunch of mortgages that haven't rolled off the 2%’s and 3%’s yet, into the 6%’s and 7'%’s.

We've got over 20,000 New Zealanders that are actually behind in their mortgages. I'm subject to that information on a daily basis. And it's frightening. It scares me.

And it doesn't scare me from the fact that, you know, the bank's going to come and get me.

It's like: what is going to happen to these people when they can't pay their mortgages?

Banks and their customers need to have a mutual respect in their dealings, and to remember that every business ultimately stands, or falls in the end, on its adherence to basic humanity. The People will tolerate disrespect and arrogance and attempted bullying for only so long.

We are at a point in New Zealand where Kiwis are willing to stand up and say “Enough!” to any who seek unbridled power. This is especially important with the issue looming on the horizon, of a Central Banking Digital Currency - CBDC - which banks around the world are getting ready to roll out in what many suspect may be a Covid-lockdown style.

It will not work. People are angry and fed up with corporates and politicians seeking tyrannical means to act as if they are our overlords.

Nick didn’t grow up with much money. He had to be creative in order to get to where he needed to go. He hoped to change the world when he initially entered the industry. He used to spend his spare time helping low income families to save money, but found it frustrating that subsequently, when he’d found savings of up to $500 a week for some families, they would take out further high-interest borrowings with the extra savings, on a new and unnecessary car for example, instead of protecting the extra monies to build for their futures.

He is determined now to find a way to help Kiwi families benefit from his knowledge, and to offer his skills so they can confront and thrive in today’s challenging and unstable financial world.

He and Liz will be recording a Money Series in late March 2024, with room for questions and answers from those keen to benefit from Nick’s wide and deep financial know-how.

People say money is not everything, but if you don't have it, it is everything.

Our message is simple:

To all banks in NZ:
Treat your customers with human dignity and listen to our concerns about your arrogance!

Write to James Willis:
CustomerDueDiligenceNZ@anz.com

Antonia Watson - ANZ CEO.
Contact via Linkedin
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoniawatsonnz/?originalSubdomain=nz

Do you have a financial question for Nick?
Email: liz.gunn@freenz.org.
Email subject line: "For Nick"

To contact Nick directly -
nick@freedomfinancial.co.nz
mortgagebrokerauckland.co.nz

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NZ Banking Abuse - Update -

9th April 2024

An update with Nick Coyle on his case of banking abuse. Thank you to all who wrote in to ANZ since the first interview. And thank you for writing to us with your similar experiences, it's been fascinating to see how many of you were specifically familiar with the conduct of James Willis at ANZ.