Okay, good morning, and thank you for joining us at our seventh annual ESG Investor Briefing. Now, to begin with, I would like to acknowledge that I'm joining you from Naarm, on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, and I pay my respect to their elders, past and present, and recognize their thousands of years of environmental, social, and governance practices. I also acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which you, our attendees, are joining from, and the First Nations people here with us today. Now, as we've done for seven years now, we're here today to discuss our progress in the area of ESG, and we take ESG as seriously as our financial results, so we want to provide you with the same opportunity to hear from us directly and to ask questions.
Today, we'll go into some detail on important societal issues affecting business and individuals in the current economic environment, hardship and scams, as well as our approach to First Nations banking. Now, to do so, I'll be joined by our new Head of First Nations Strategy Australia, Shelley Cable, and our Customer Fairness Adviser, Evelyn Halls. But first, just an overview of our approach. ESG is integral to our purpose, which is to shape a world where people and communities thrive, and we deliver that purpose by executing our strategy, which is focused on improving the financial well-being and the sustainability of our customers. Specifically, we help people save for, buy, and own a livable, affordable home, or to start or buy and sustainably grow their business, and we help companies sustainably move goods and capital around the region.
ESG is an important and integrated part of the strategy and creates long-term value for our shareholders while helping us better serve customers. Now, to keep pace with the rapidly evolving external environment and community expectations, we engage regularly with stakeholders to consider whether we're focused on the right areas. Now, following the process this year, our three core areas continue to be financial well-being, housing, and environmental sustainability. Other areas of focus include protection from scams and fraud, as well as responsible customer engagement, which we're speaking about in more detail today. Our governance model, overseeing progress in these areas, includes our board ethics and ESG committee, chaired by Jane Halton, and the Ethics and Responsible Banking Committee, or ERBC, which I chair. Since its introduction in 2017, the ERBC has made significant contributions towards achieving fair, ethical, and balanced stakeholder outcomes.
This includes establishing our ethical decision-making framework and deciding who we bank and how we bank them. At the same time, the board's EESG committee has provided direction on a diverse range of topics, including some of the toughest we face as a company, such as family violence, human rights, and the economy's transition to net zero. Now, we don't always get it right, but we have robust processes in place and forums for raising important issues. Looking ahead, we're considering how we can further strengthen these committees to ensure that ANZ continues to take meaningful action towards our purpose, and I'll speak more on this later. Looking externally, we're a large company, which touches many parts of the economy in our home markets of Australia and New Zealand, so it's important we don't operate in a bubble.
We work hard to stay alert to and connected with what's happening in the broader economy and the impact it's having on our customers and the community. In both Australia and New Zealand, economic growth has slowed, consumption is soft, interest rates are the highest they've been in over a decade, and inflation is stubbornly above target. For many people, times are incredibly tough. Foodbank alone is delivering roughly 65,000 meals every day in Melbourne, while heartbreakingly, some Australians are skipping meals to keep up with everyday costs, and we are seeing similar in New Zealand. In line with the broader economic environment, the number of ANZ home loan customers in hardship has risen over the last year to around three in every 1,000 people. The number for small business customers is similar, at around two in every 1,000.
Now, while these numbers are still low in historical terms, we expect they will continue to rise, given the external environment, and we're working hard to help people who are struggling. Now, we noted the recent ASIC report, which found more than one in three Australians disengaged from the financial hardship application process at least once. Now, to tackle this, we're taking measures to improve both the experiences and the outcomes for those seeking hardship support through an action plan, which Evelyn will speak to in more detail. We're also trying to connect with customers in difficulty sooner, including by using data analytics and modeling to proactively identify those facing hardship triggers, such as reduced income or negative cash flow. And when we do contact these customers, we let them know that ANZ is here to help and provide information about our financial assistance.
This helps us determine quickly whether support is required, such as pausing or reducing payments or restructuring their loan. Now, for many, it's not necessary, but when it is, we can help customers get back on their feet faster. Now, it's important to also note that many of our home loan customers remain resilient, with 79% actually ahead on their home loan repayments, while offset balances are growing year on year. For now, employment remains strong, and savings built up during COVID continue to be high in Australia, providing many households with some level of security. Now, that said, we're aware we also have customers who are in difficulty and may not have a credit card or a home loan. These retail customers may not be as visible in our statistics, but they're still our customers, and we need to do what we can to help them.
This includes supporting financial well-being through our long-running flagship financial well-being and education programs, Money Minded and Saver Plus. It may also be by making sure they have the most appropriate product for their circumstances. ANZ Plus allows us to offer simple and intuitive financial well-being tools, like setting a savings goal or using roundups to set aside money for a rainy day. With more than 740,000 customers already on board ANZ Plus, it's really pleasing to see that 47% of them actively are engaged in one or more of our financial well-being tools. Now, it's important to support and protect all of our customers, and we will continue to stay vigilant. We also support our customers through our efforts to keep them safe: safe from criminals, safe from hackers, and safe from scammers.
Providing a safe place for people's money has been core to our business for 196 years, and that's why investing in security is such a top priority. Criminals used to rob bank branches, but increasingly, they scam customers. In recent years, the extent and pace of change in the scams landscape has evolved significantly as the perpetrators become increasingly sophisticated. Now, at the same time, we've increased investment and prevention and detection tools across the bank, leveraging new technologies such as AI, machine learning, and biometrics. You may have also seen our latest advertisements with the return of our hugely popular Falcon, an anti-fraud system flagging suspicious transactions. Now, the ads are fun, but they also carry a serious message about extra layers of protection that the Falcon technology provides.
We're heartened by the latest National Anti-Scam Centre quarterly numbers, showing overall reported scam losses in the March quarter were down by around 10% from the previous quarter. Now, at ANZ, we're also seeing evidence that our initiatives are helping reduce fraud and scam losses for customers. Again, Evelyn will talk to the numbers in more detail, and while they're heading in the right direction, we know we can't be complacent, and we need to take more action. Now, I'd like to touch briefly on our three key ESG areas, starting with housing. Challenges in the housing market are disproportionately impacting low-income earners, renters, and first-time homebuyers. We know that it has been equally difficult for the property sector to deliver new housing supply to market, as we've seen firsthand the steep increases in the cost of construction.
We remain focused on helping improve the availability of suitable and affordable housing options for all Australians and New Zealanders. As part of this, we're supporting an increase in the supply of social and affordable housing by investing in emerging housing markets such as specialist disability accommodation, land lease housing, and build-to-rent. ANZ has a target to fund and facilitate AUD 10 billion of investment by 2030 to deliver more affordable, accessible, and sustainable homes to buy and rent. Now, at the end of March this year, we've delivered more than AUD 5.7 billion toward that commitment since 2018. A recent example was our financing of the Ground Lease Model 2 project, a public-private partnership between the Victorian State Government and the Building Communities Consortium.
This project is expected to deliver 1,370 new social, affordable, specialist disability, and market rental residential dwellings across four project sites in Victoria. The new housing stock will replace aging properties with modern, accessible, and more energy-efficient rentals. The project's a great example of how we work with our customers and other stakeholders to deliver better housing outcomes. Now, turning to financial well-being, we're working to encourage our customers to build and maintain financial resilience. Our aim is to have at least 2.5 million customers in Australia and New Zealand with a financial buffer by the end of 2026. Now, this is from a baseline of 2.4 million customers, which may not sound like a large increase to our target. However, in the current external environment, even maintaining the baseline level will be challenging.
Pleasingly, just last month, the federal government extended funding for Saver Plus, and this will allow more Australians to participate in the award-winning program, which is now the longest-running matched saving and financial education program in the world. In total, our long-running partnership with governments and community organizations like the Brotherhood of St Laurence, have helped 60,000 lower-income Australians save more than AUD 29 million, while also receiving AUD 24 million in savings matched by ANZ. We're now also piloting Saver Plus in the Pacific, and from July this year, we will be partnering with the Australian Federal Government to expand the reach of Money Business, our tailored adult financial education program for Indigenous Australians. We're in the process of building a digital banking and capability module, recognizing the linkages between financial well-being and digital capability. Now, finally, we're also making really good progress in environmental sustainability.
As you may know, we've achieved more than AUD 66 billion against our previous sustainable solutions targets since 2015. So we set a new target in April 2023 to fund and facilitate at least AUD 100 billion in social and environmental outcomes by 2030 through customer activities and direct investments. By the end of March, we funded and facilitated over AUD 20 billion across 131 transactions since the new target commenced. So, for example, ANZ led a $940 million green export credit agency-backed facility for Hyundai Mobis North America to finance the supply of parts for domestic electric vehicle production in the United States. We've also been engaging with our customers on their transition plans for almost a decade, to explore ways in which our customers can improve their plans, which may be facilitated by our financing solutions.
This financial year, we're applying an enhanced assessment framework to our largest emitting business customers, including a sharper focus on whether our customers are implementing their transition plans. Now, this work has been led by our Group Executive Institutional, Mark Whelan, and Chief Risk Officer, Kevin Corbally . They recently met with customers, peer institutions, and regulators in Europe to benchmark, learn, and discuss these issues in a market which is well advanced in this area. Mark and Kevin are both here today if you have any questions on these topics. Now, I'd like to introduce Shelley Cable, our new Head of First Nations Strategy, Australia. Shelley's role is one of the first of its kind, reporting to a Group CEO in corporate Australia, reflecting the significance of her appointment.
A proud Noongar woman, Shelley will develop and implement an Australian First Nations strategy for the bank, while acting as a trusted advisor on First Nations issues and opportunities. She brings extensive experience across First Nations employment and financial literacy, most recently as a director of Generation One, an initiative of the Minderoo Foundation. So over to you, Shelley.
Thank you, Shayne, and Kaya. Good morning, everyone. [Foreign language] . My name is Shelley Cable, and I belong to the Noongar people of Southwestern Australia, and I'm very proud to have joined ANZ in January as the inaugural Head of First Nations Strategy for Australia. And while this role is new, it shouldn't be unexpected, as it builds on ANZ's history and track record of reconciliation. From being one of the first major Australian companies to develop a Reconciliation Action Plan or RAP in 2007, to appointing my peer, Karleen Everitt, Te Kaitohu Rautaki Māori, Head of Te Ao Māori Strategy in 2021, to our support for the Yes campaign in last year's referendum. My appointment is a logical progression of ANZ's maturity and commitment to First Nations.
In this new role, my priority is to develop an Australian First Nations strategy for the bank that is aligned to our purpose, strategy, and business. While the strategy is in its early stages of development, I'm happy to share some initial thinking. Our objective for this strategy is to weave together meaningful actions, projects, and commitments that leverage our core business strengths and help us to be more deliberate about our relationships with First Nations in Australia. We are conducting an extensive consultation process to inform this strategy and are seeking input from many people across our bank, communities, and country. Importantly, I want to stress that ANZ is not only pursuing this strategy because it's the right thing to do. As our investors, you should know that this is also good for our business.
You can look across the Tasman to ANZ New Zealand's Tākiri-ā-Rangi strategy as an example, where our focus is on economic equality by advancing Māori business and financial well-being. In Australia, the First Nations economy represents an exciting opportunity for our bank. This sector contributed around AUD 16 billion to Australia's GDP in 2022, and the sector is growing rapidly, well above our national growth rate. Without a strategy on how to bank this sector, we miss the opportunity in front of us. And therefore, we're developing a business strategy that centers on the common grounds, the win-win opportunities, where what's good for First Nations people is also good for our business, and there are plenty of these opportunities.
The strategy will also be strengths-based and recognize the fact that First Nations peoples in Australia have run economies and traded for longer than anyone else on the planet today. There is much for our bank to learn. At this early stage, and subject to further consultation, it's likely that the strategy will focus on three key areas: financial well-being, banking, the First Nations economy, and improving the cultural capability of our bank. The strategy will also build on the work already underway in our current Stretch Reconciliation Action Plan, which is approaching its conclusion this year. We continue to make good progress against the 17 actions, comprising 100 commitments in the RAP. Some of our achievements in 2023 included launching a First Nations commercial banking proposition, which included the appointment of First Nations bankers who work directly with First Nations commercial customers.
Spending almost AUD 12 million with First Nations businesses, bringing total spending since this RAP commenced to more than AUD 24 million. These are just some of the examples of the progress that ANZ is making. If we get this strategy right, the commercial opportunity for ANZ is significant. For First Nations in Australia, this is an exciting opportunity to advance our economic self-determination by being included in the financial system, cementing our rightful place in the Australian economy, and determining our own futures from a position of economic strength. I look forward to sharing our Australian First Nations strategy with you in 2025. Now, I'll hand over to Evelyn Halls, our Customer Fairness Adviser at ANZ.
Thanks, Shelley. Today, I'd like to update you on the progress being made in two key areas for ANZ and our customers, scams and hardship. But first, I'd like to say a few words about my role at ANZ. My role reports directly to Shayne as Group CEO, and involves providing advice to guide ANZ's decision-making on the fairness of our products and services for retail and small business customers. An industry challenge, if not a global challenge, I'll speak to first, is scams. I'm sure you've all seen news stories about people who have been affected and sometimes devastated by increasingly sophisticated fraud and scams in our communities. As Shayne has already highlighted, we are encouraged to see that the numbers of reported scam losses in Australia has fallen over recent months.
For ANZ, customer scam losses through ANZ Classic for the first half of FY 2024 are down a third compared with the second half of FY 2023. Meanwhile, our controls prevented over AUD 100 million of customer funds going to cybercriminals in the 12 months to March 2024. The downward trend in losses is partly due to the increased friction we have put in place to slow down the payment process, but is also thanks to our enhanced Falcon technology, detecting more suspicious transactions. In fact, currently, most customer complaints about fraud and scams relate to transactions being blocked due to suspected fraud. We continue to invest in innovative detection and prevention measures to stay ahead of the criminals who are creating new scams and frauds on a weekly, if not daily, basis.
This includes piloting a dedicated team of specialists in our customer protection team who handle calls about fraud and scams. We recently introduced Crypto Protect, a tool which turns off the ability for ANZ Plus customers to make payments to cryptocurrency exchanges, used in around half of all scams, unless customers choose to override it. We have also built in additional friction and delays to specific payment destinations, which we have identified as having a high scam or fraud risk. These destinations are updated on an ongoing basis to reflect the latest data. Building on our existing scam warnings, this year, we will also introduce personalized messages to inform ANZ Classic customers when a transaction or activity is considered high risk, as well as a new scam scoring model using AI to boost our scam detection capability. Education is also critical.
We're mobilizing our MoneyMinded financial literacy program by working with our community partners to deliver new scam awareness workshops through our network of coaches in the community sector. We've established a partnership with the Brotherhood of St Laurence to deliver scams awareness modules directly to the most vulnerable people in the community. On ANZ Plus, we've added key scam-safe measures that customers can activate for added security, including protection against screen sharing and the ability to detect a range of potentially risky apps. Prevention is critical, but what happens if a customer loses money to a scam? Once we become aware of a scam, we make every effort to recover lost funds, including by contacting the bank where the funds have been sent.
The ability to recover funds depends largely on how quickly the scam is reported to us, given the speed with which funds are transferred onwards by scammers. Where a customer's funds can't be recovered, we review each case to seek to understand exactly how the scam occurred and to determine whether the funds should be reimbursed. We consider factors such as whether ANZ was or should have been aware that the customer may be the victim of a scam, and whether we had the opportunity to intervene, as well as warnings given to the customer and their response to those warnings. We also take into account customer vulnerability.
Generally, we will reimburse where we consider ANZ could and should have acted to prevent the loss and failed to do so, as well as where required by law or the ePayments Code. We will continue to work closely with other banks across industry sectors and with government and regulators to proactively identify and address scam trends so that together, we can stay ahead of scammers and protect Australians from emerging threats. This includes through the government's new cutting-edge Intel Loop, an exchange between banks, telcos, digital platforms, and the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange, which enables near real-time data sharing about the latest tactics and tools used by scammers.
Now, I'd like to turn to the issue of hardship, which Shayne touched on briefly. As he mentioned, the number of customers in hardship has been slowly rising over the past year or so, and while still lower than it has been in the past, it is an extremely concerning and distressing time for each of these customers. The drivers have been consistent over the last two years, primarily reduced income, increased commitments, medical reasons, unemployment, and separation. As Shayne also mentioned, we are delivering an action plan to improve the experience and the outcomes for our customers seeking hardship support. We want to ensure that our hardship processes are simple, accessible, and easy to use, and provide sustainable outcomes suitable to each customer's individual circumstances.
Our action plan is focused on five key areas. First, improving policies, procedures, and training for our staff. Second, ensuring executive-level end-to-end oversight. Third, improving our customer communications so they are clearer and more personalized. Fourth, evolving our customer experience through reporting and surveys. And finally, fifth, providing specialist support to vulnerable customers in financial difficulty.
We have a dedicated team of people in Customer Connect, whose role is to work with customers to tailor the support to best suit their needs and individual situation. When a customer applies for hardship, this team will speak with them to understand their situation and discuss the options available. That may be by providing short-term options, such as a loan repayment pause, partial payment reduction, or interest-only payments, or longer-term solutions, such as reviewing and restructuring loan terms and repayment. Looking ahead, we do anticipate that hardship numbers will rise further given the external environment. But I do want to assure customers who are struggling that we are here to support them. Now, I would like to hand back to Shayne before we go to questions.
Thanks, Evelyn. Now, today, we've spoken mostly about what we've done in the past year. Now I'd like to speak briefly about the next 12 months. Our core focus areas will continue to be housing, financial well-being, and environmental sustainability, but we also need to stay ahead of emerging risks. And one of the ways we do this is through an ESG issues radar, which points to many of the topics discussed here today. Looking ahead, we're alert to the following five themes. First, supporting our customers as cost of living pressures increase. Given the economic environment, we expect financial stress will rise over the next 12 months, and we're committed to executing our hardship action plan to help those who are struggling. Second, managing the ethical choices we make as we further roll out generative AI.
You've heard us mention today how AI can be a force for good, helping protect customers by detecting and preventing fraud, but it also raises ethical questions around how it's used and the potential unintended consequences for our people and our customers. We're continuing to look at the implications and how we can respond to those issues in a thoughtful and ethical way. Third, supporting the transition to net zero. This is a significant opportunity for ANZ. We want to be the leading Australia and New Zealand-based bank in supporting customers to transition to net zero by 2050. So it's important that we're at the leading edge of providing innovative solutions, but we also need to be on alert to greenwashing risk. We'll continue to manage this primarily through our robust risk management policies and processes. Fourth, diversity and inclusion will be enormously important.
In a fast-changing world, with rapid technological advancements and massive opportunities around innovation, a people-oriented business like ours needs to work hard to attract and retain the best people. In terms of gender balance, we've made good progress and increased our women in leadership to 37.3% in 2023. Now, this exceeds our target of 36.9%, but we know we have much more to do. Inclusion goes beyond gender, to include diversity of cultures and sexual identification, and our job is to be as open and inclusive as possible. Fifth, and finally, as the world continues to evolve and adapt to pace, we need to make sure our governance is fit for purpose.
Over the next 12 months, we'll enhance the objectives for the ERBC and look at the measures we're using to track progress, and we look forward to updating you on our progress next year. So in closing, we understand we have more to do, but we are making progress. We recognize the importance of ESG in delivering long-term benefits to our shareholders. Managing ESG well delivers stronger governance outcomes, a lower-risk bank, and more sustainable earnings as we adapt to the rapidly changing environment. I'm confident we have the right team and plans in place, underpinned by our strong financial performance, to continue to deliver for our customers, our people, and our shareholders. I'll now hand over to the operator, who will open the floor to your questions. Thank you.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Jonathan Mott with Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Thank you. I've got a question for Shayne, and it goes back to the topic of housing and something that you've talked about a lot over the last year in particular, which is that mortgages have become a product only for the rich. I think you described them as a luxury good. You know, if you look at it, you've seen that the average household income for mortgage borrowers has risen by close to 30% over the last two years, and it's going up towards the mid-60 percentiles to get into the housing market.
Now, if I step back and look at some of the comments you said, you started with the purpose of ANZ, shaping a world where people and communities thrive, yet we're in a situation where it's very, very difficult for young people to break into the housing market. Then when I look at the newspaper articles, there's new policies that have come out, where people earning more than AUD 400,000 income in 145 expensive postcodes now waive their mortgage insurance up to 95% LVR. So I'm trying to piece this together, that what can you do to actually try and get, especially younger people who aren't necessarily high-income earners, into the housing market?
I know everyone falls back on responsible lending, so it's worth also noting what John Lonsdale came out yesterday and actually said, and I'll quote from his speech at the ABA, where he said, "Most of the framework is principle-based, and there's significant room for banks to run the businesses the way they want," and that means by their ability to set their own business strategy, pricing, and risk appetite. So what can you do really on housing to make it, the community thrive and help young people get into the housing market?
Yeah, it's a-- thanks for the question, Jonathan. It's a very important question and one that we spend a lot of time thinking about. I mean, I think obviously there's two sides. Well, there's more than that, but there's obviously two ways we can do that. We do need to make sure that our lending and risk appetite is appropriate, not just for people with lots of money or lots of assets or high incomes, but we need to make sure that that's appropriate and fair within the rules. And again, not blaming just the regulators themselves, but within the regulatory framework we have, which principles or not, is still restrictive, yeah? And we still have to abide by those principles, so I think they're still restrictive. But where we really think we can lean in more is actually on the supply side.
You know, just last Friday, actually, we had a something we do very often. We sit around with a lot of our developer in the residential and other spaces, customers, and talk to them about how we can better support them in terms of getting more product to market, you know? Now, it's not—you know, we can't... I'm not suggesting that we can solve that all on our own, but we can be very, very supportive in making sure we're supporting the right developers with the right business models, et cetera. You'd be aware of things like, you know, one of our customers, Assemble, which is a really interesting, innovative, business model, which is bringing affordable housing in that sort of essential worker belt.
You know, and it's got a model of how they're able to do that, partnering both with the super industry and the bank. So we think there's real opportunity in some of these newer models or the land lease models, et cetera. So we're focused... Again, what ANZ does well, you know, where we have our strengths, clearly is skewed on the institutional side. It's something that, you know, we have strength in relative to our peers, and so we think we can do a lot more on that side. Having said all that, the challenge in that market is scale.
The question is, you know, what we're focused on with, with Kevin and Mark and the team, in institutional is, like, there's some really good models out there, but at the moment, they're delivering, you know, hundreds of homes or units, and we need to find a way to do thousands and tens of thousands. That's really where we think we can get the best leverage in terms of increasing the supply of affordable and livable homes. I won't bore you with the details because you know them, but again, we got a lot of feedback from our property customers on where there is opportunity to reduce the cost of construction. Some of it's to do, some of it's to do with their regulations, some of it's to do with other bits and pieces, et cetera. You know, we have a voice in that as well, as part of the overall ecosystem on housing, to sort of make sure that we lobby for the right sorts of changes that can reduce the cost of construction.
Is there anything that you can do on the pricing and risk appetite to help younger people get into the housing market? I understand the supply side.
Yeah.
That's a challenge that a lot of people have been talking about. As a bank, you can affect the demand side of credit a lot more easily than you can impact the supply side. You've obviously made some changes in policy and pricing at the very top end.
Well-
What can you do at the mid-level for young people?
Well, you know, that's also an interesting question. I'm not, I'm not sure I agree with you that that's necessary, we can do more on that side. I think, you know, when you look at ANZ and our business mix, you know, we over-index proudly around institutional, that we do have a significant force there in terms of our balance sheet capability and what we can do on the supply side. But I take your point. Look, the reality is that the and you know this better than anybody, and if we were sitting here in a different forum talking at financials, the returns on home loans ain't what they used to be. And so when the average return now on home lending is, you know, above, but barely above cost of capital, your options are limited.
And that is part of the reason that the industry, not just us, that is part of the reason the industry is skewing towards the wealthy, because sadly, we also need to generate returns above cost of capital in a sustainable way, and that's why there's that kind of a skew to that area. So look, that doesn't mean we do nothing. It means that we constantly have to be looking for policy settings, you know, products, et cetera, that can make those sorts of things affordable and encourage first home buyers. But also, as you know, it needs to be economically sustainable from our point of view.
Which brings me to ANZ Plus, and again, I'll do my little spruik here, but, part of the whole, the beauty of our ANZ Plus platform is to, is to build, and we have now, a dramatically lower cost platform to operate on. Now, we've still got a way to go. You know, the way that we can reduce the cost of production from ourselves, the cost of producing a home loan, is there's two big inputs. There's lots, obviously, and again, the people on the call know them, I won't bore you. But there's, the two of the ones we, is the operational cost, you know? It's not the biggest, but there's the cost of the money, the cost of funds that go into making up a home loan, and the operational cost. Plus is designed to radically reduce both, particularly operational cost.
So now we have in trial a truly digital home loan. Not everybody wants one of those. I get that. But for those who do, you know, that is a radically lower cost proposition, which means then the people who will benefit from that lower cost, sure, shareholders, but also will mean we'll have the ability to have more attractive pricing out there for young people as well. But I, look, I'm not gonna profess that we have all the answers. We don't. It's a very, very complex issue. I know, and all I can say is we get it. It's our responsibility to lean in and be part of the broader discussion, whether it's with government, and governments of various flavors, state and federal, and also obviously with the industry who produce and obviously with our regulators as well.
Great. Thank you for detailed answer.
Thanks.
Your next question comes from Andrew Triggs with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Morning, Shayne.
Hi.
Just a follow-up, actually, on John's question. Look, I would agree with respect to the residential property development side of things, that there was a 2016 thematic review that APRA undertook on the sector, and it acknowledged or had concerns around controls and weakening underwriting standards in the residential property development market. But what that drove was... Well, at least I think it was one of the big drivers, was a 15 percentage point loss in banks' share of-- or sorry, major banks' share of bank-originated commercial property exposures. I would have thought the two are pretty closely linked. We've seen things like the amount of pre-commitments required in order for a bank to extend credit to a property development greater than 100%, typically a reduction in LVRs in that space, too. That's all good from a credit quality perspective, but it would appear to be accentuating the issues on supply. I'm just interested in your comments-
I agree.
If you think there's any potential for loosening from APRA on that side of things?
Oh, that's a question for APRA. I agree with you. I mean, you can't have it both ways as a community. We, you know, I'm not pointing fingers at anybody, but as a society, we have voted, either consciously or not, for safety.
Mm, definitely.
We want the banks to be safe. We want people to be safe. We want nobody to lose their home, nobody to end up in difficulty, nobody to lose their business. Those are all laudable objectives, but they come at a cost. The cost is exactly what we're talking about now, which means that middle Australia gets locked out. You know, as we know, you know, the average Australian can't afford the average Australian home. Yeah, okay, we can sit there and say it's 'cause the prices are high, but it's also because they do have less access to credit than they would have had in the past.
So, yes, this is, you know, again, I'm not suggesting anybody sat around and designed this outcome for it, but this is the outcome we have. We have a very safe system, and the cost is that some people are locked out. You know, I don't see that getting better anytime soon, unless there's some sort of form of intervention. You know, our job as a, you know, reasonable, not the largest, but a reasonable player in the space, is to be actively engaged and try to be constructive. That's what we want to do. We're very happy to have construct... And we do. And by the way, you know, I listened to John's speech yesterday, obviously, and so APRA. But it's not just... It's not fair to—I'm not suggesting it's all APRA's fault either, by the way. There's a system here that has many, many players in it. And, you know, I think there's—it's time, you know, under some sort of auspices, to get more of people around the table and really talk through these issues and understand what can, can be done. Because clearly, it's becoming more and more unacceptable for the broader community.
Thank you. Just on a different topic, the ASIC report on hardship in May this year.
Yes.
Just interested, to what extent was there a benchmarking element that you could see how ANZ compared to peers? And also just, a general question: Do you see risk of any look-back remediation for past hardship treatment of customers?
It's a great question. Kevin's here, he can talk about it. Just on the hardship, I'll just, while he's getting up to the microphone, the hardship programs we have are really, really important. Again, I think we need to be clear, they're not right for everybody, you know? Our first responsibility, because even hardship programs aren't sort of for free from a customer perspective. There are implications of going onto hardship, and so we do need to be thoughtful. It doesn't mean just because somebody wants hardship, the right thing to do is naturally go into those programs. It is for many, but our first responsibility is to say: Is this the appropriate action to take? So, but in terms of your question on the report, Kevin, do you want to cover that?
Yeah, Shayne, thank you. Look, Andrew, the key thing probably to note is that we weren't actually one of the participants in that review that ASIC undertook. ASIC had separately looked at our hardship processes, and I would say that some of the findings that were in that report were also findings that would have applied to us. So as a result, because we weren't a participant in it, we're not actually aware of what, if any, benchmarking exercise was undertaken.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks.
Any chance of look-back treatment or remediation?
I don't think... That's a good question. I'm not, I'm not aware-
I mean-
that that's been even discussed or thought about. I mean, I think our hardship programs stack up pretty well in terms of obviously we do our own sort of look-back reviews. I... It's, I haven't heard that being raised as any sort of-
I mean, ASIC did indicate in the report that they would consider whether there was a need for any impact on any of the individual banks that participated in it. That's the only thing I saw on it, so.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Myleah House with Ethical Partners Funds Management. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Shayne, and thank you, team. Firstly, I just wanted to acknowledge the great work that ANZ has done and is doing on the First Nations strategy. Really pleasing to see that today. My question goes to the comments made around transition plans and the enhanced framework. I'm interested if you could provide a little bit more color around what specifically that enhanced framework looks like, and how you're assessing the credibility of transition plans, and what steps you'll take if customers don't meet those expectations? Thank you.
Great question. To Mark, do you want to come and talk about that? It's a great question. So to answer the last part of the question, there's lots of things we can do when we undertake those reviews. I would say that 99% of them are constructive conversations we have with our customers. It's not that we're not at loggerheads with people. We're constructively both trying to solve the same problem, obviously, from different perspectives. And so when we're not comfortable, we engage in a dialogue, and we explain why. That will change our relationship, and it will change our risk appetite. In extreme, and this hasn't happened for a while, but you know, in an extreme, we would contemplate no longer banking that customer.
If we really got to a point where we said, "Hey, this is a customer who just doesn't get it, and that, you know, they don't have credible, funded plans," we need to reassess the nature of our relationship. Now, as I said, that's pretty rare because, you know, we bank, you know, largely responsible, you know, well-run, well-governed organizations. Not to mean that they're perfect, and doesn't mean they don't have their own challenges, but generally, it's a constructive conversation. But we are trying to strengthen it, and, Mark, maybe you want to talk through how we plan to do that.
Yeah, that covers a fair amount of it. I mean, the way we engage in these conversations with the customers is around three particular areas, which is around the governance that they have in place, from board down. Disclosures that they have in the market and publicly disclose, disclosures, but, and also targets with regards to, you know, what they've got, set themselves internally. Now, we've been having those conversations with these customers for many years now, and what we're doing when we say we're lifting that assessment, we're just asking for more detail. We're certainly lifting the bar on each of those three particular areas about where they're looking to make disclosures and the governance practices they've put in place.
And we've said that we want to. And we classify these customers with regards to those areas in an A, B, C, D category. A being very advanced, D being not so, and those that sit in between. We then have conversations, as Shayne said, around these different areas in that classification. And what we've said to many of our customers now is that we want to see progress, more progress in these areas by 2025. And if we're not seeing the progress, particularly from our Cs and Ds, in moving in the right direction, that then we need to have further discussions with them or start making decisions around the approach we're taking in supporting them in their transition levels. So that's pretty much what we do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Can I just clarify? You've mentioned targets here. Do you have any expectations or assessments of how those targets are aligned to a 1.5 degree pathway? And what's your position on offsets and customers using offsets to meet those targets, as opposed to prioritizing absolute emissions reductions in the first instance?
Yeah, we look for TCFD-aligned disclosures in the first instance. And with regards to offsets, we also, we see that as a legitimate tool to be used, and you see that as, as the government's pointed out in the Safeguard Mechanism as well. So we see it as a legitimate tool, but it should only be one tool in, in, ensuring that they meet their targets. So that we want to see real progress in their underlying moves to decarbonizing their own businesses. But also, we understand that some industries that we're talking to here are very difficult to decarbonize and that therefore, offsets will be part of that solution, but not the only part of that solution.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Matthew Wilson with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon or good morning, team. Thanks for the opportunity to ask a question. Just on deposits, you know, while home loans are very important, do you think they get a disproportionate level of intention from an ESG perspective? You know, certain banks are now making more money in absolute sense from paying below market or paying zero on a retail deposit. So from an ESG perspective, you know, do you think banks can enable retail depositors to earn a rate closer to the market rate to earn bonus interest, given most of the time, the conditions associated with earning that bonus interest are tricky? Or will it take the government to move on deposits to get a fairer outcome from an ESG perspective on the deposit market?
It's a really good question. Overall, I think as an industry, and I include all of you on the line on this one, we do spend too much time talking about home loans, in general. The reality is, you know, we have, at a really simplistic level, we have one privileged position in the community, and that is the ability to take deposits. Anybody can do a home loan, pretty much. It's not very hard, and it's not terribly restricted, but not everybody can take a deposit. So we do have a privileged position there, and to your point, we need to make sure that we cherish that position and invest in it.
So part of, again, without over speaking it, part of the proposition around Plus has always been to how do we, A, move on to a lower cost platform, but one that allows us to have innovative and appropriate, well-managed products in the deposit space. Because we ultimately, our business philosophy has to be, we need to be in the business of gathering high-quality deposits and then using those to lend where it's appropriate. So that is fundamental to our strategy. In terms of pricing, I, hand on my heart, I'm not sure which banks you're talking about. We don't have a big deposit base sitting at zero or whatever.
Most of our customers, we've got a range of products, as you know and most of our customers are pretty good in terms of, and we have the products that do pay fair and reasonable rates. We need to do a better job. At the moment, Plus is our, is our platform that we're really pushing on. And as you-- and again, I'm not, this, I know this is not a paid-for advert, but, you know, we're paying 4.9% essentially on a current account, no conditions, no fees, et cetera, up to AUD 250,000. So we do have really good, simple, appropriate product, and we're nudging and encouraging people to take advantage of those things.
Excellent. Thanks, Shayne.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Brendan Sproules with Citi. Please go ahead.
Good morning, team. Brendan from Citi. Look, I just want to ask around, particularly slide 40, where you've shown the targets around the decarbonization of certain sectors. I mean, a lot of... For a lot of these customers transition plans, it's the decarbonization of the grid that's gonna be the key component. I mean, this has been a lot of discussion in Canberra in recent weeks and months. So how do you see and think about these plans if the grid isn't reshaped in the way that it's currently seen now? Are you going to look at these targets annually, given some of the uncertainty around the decarbonisation of the grid?
So we do look at the targets, and it's a really good... It's, again, it's an excellent question. If this is a complex ecosystem, obviously, and, and what we're trying to do here is be responsible and have pathways around certain high-intensity sectors that you would expect around oil and gas and aluminum, cement, et cetera, et cetera. But also, I take your point that at the end of the day, that's all really interesting, and we should do the right thing. The ultimate thing here, you know, the grid plays a really important role. So yes, we do. And look, all I say, big topic at both the board ESG committee and at my, the management, the ERBC committee. And what we try to do here is, this is not a set-and-forget policy, nowhere near it.
I mean, we're constantly, literally every couple of months, getting people in, experts, regulators, people from different markets, operators, different environmental groups, to learn and understand what's possible, where the real challenges are, and where we could be doing a better job. I mentioned in my chat that Kevin and Mark were recently... We do this every year. We Europe, you know, pick a place, but Europe seems to be sort of more thoughtful and perhaps more advanced, depending on the way you think about things on these issues.
We spend quite a bit of time out there trying to learn, too, not just on climate, but even in broader, on things like biodiversity and others, to sort of get a sense of where this is all headed and what are other banks doing, and you know, where are things we can learn. All I can say is it's constantly under review. I take the point about the grid, and these are things that we continue to learn and adapt in terms of our, the baselines we set, the targets, and how we think we can have the biggest impact. I do think ANZ has a slightly unique challenge and opportunity because we have a big indexing to an institutional bank, and, as opposed to some of our peers, who are obviously much more focused on retail. So we have a different perspective, and that comes with some different challenges as well.
I just have a second question-
Yep.
If I may, just coming back to the mortgage discussion and the availability of credit. I mean, how do you take into effect the insufficient sort of supply of housing? I mean, from a regulator's perspective, I imagine that expanding the availability of credit now might actually just speed up the existing stock further. How do you think about that debate?
We do think about that a lot. I mean, and again, overly simplistic, too much of the recent conversation in the broader community, and again, irrespective of who's saying it, has been around demand. You know, how do we, how do we get, you know, how do we get more demand into the system, whether it's, you know, different programs to help people buy, et cetera, et cetera? And insufficient conversation and action has been taken on supply side. You know, how do we get. You know, it's sad to sit here and thinking about the significant increases in demand, looking at pricing, and at the same time, housing approvals are falling. So we've got a, you know, this is a complex, obviously, issue.
And that's why I said, as I said, we do need to do much more as an industry, and certainly at ANZ, we take that really seriously around what we need to do on the supply side. I don't know that I get, you know, you threw in there from a regulatory point of view, I don't know that that's terribly restrictive on what we need to do there. I think it's just good old-fashioned economics, that the math doesn't work, from a developer's point of view today when they tot it all up in terms of the cost of construction, the time it takes for development approvals, which is cost, and et cetera. Yeah, okay, access to credit is part of it, and, you know, we can probably do a better job there.
You and some of your other questions there sort of pointed out maybe the industry is being a little bit restrictive on commercial property. I'd argue for good reason, given the history, but nonetheless, maybe we can do a better job on that. But I think it's much more complex. And yes, we're actively. Well, I mean, we have a head of housing strategy, not so much about, it's nothing to do with doing home loans, but actually, you know, trying to be a thought leader in this whole program. We think there's lots to be done in these sort of new business models, whether it's build to rent or the model that I talked about with Assemble and others, as well. So we think that's where we can, we can be of the best assistance.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Shayne Elliott for closing remarks.
Okay. I think we're done. I think we're good. I'm looking at my team here. I think we're good. Thank you very much. I would just say thank you very much for the question. Thanks to Evelyn and Shelley for their comments. As I said in my opening remarks, ANZ, we do take this seriously. We don't always get it right. It is a very, very fast-moving space. What's important to us is that we have the governance settings right, and as I mentioned in there, and may have been missed a little bit, we are doing quite a big review, actually, of both our board committee and the management committee. They've been in place for five, six, seven years. They've been really effective.
We can point to a bunch of things we think we've improved as a result, but we also feel like it's time for another sort of a reboot, given that the challenges ahead are different. Lots of questions today about housing. We get that, and that's really core to who and what we are. Lots of questions also about the whole sort of broader idea of financial well-being, particularly in a time of cost of living challenges and, of course, the environment. So there's lots to do, but we need to sort of uplift our governance approach, which we're really working on as we speak, and we'll be able to talk more about that at next year's forum. So thanks, everybody, for your time, and thank you for your questions.