What Matos told the committee
ANZ was the first of the big four banks to appear before the House of Representatives economics committee this week. Asked about AI by independent MP Allegra Spender, Matos said he couldn’t say whether the technology would have a net positive, net negative, or neutral impact on jobs in Australia or globally. He added that anything he said now could be wrong in six months, given how quickly AI is moving.
He told the committee that none of ANZ’s recent job cuts were caused by AI, but he couldn’t guarantee there would be no AI-related job losses in future. Almost 3,500 ANZ employees left in the year to September, the bank reported on Monday. Over the same period, its statutory net profit rose 23 per cent to $7.27 billion.
Matos also said wide adoption of AI without proper guardrails was a serious problem, and that no bank should build AI without the right controls. ANZ is developing its own control platform as it rolls the technology out across the bank.
Offshoring also came up. Of ANZ’s 40,000 employees, about 18,000 are in Australia and 7,000 in New Zealand, with up to 9,000 in India and the Philippines, AAP reported. Matos said offshoring had been standard practice for decades, and that ANZ’s offshore headcount had actually fallen by 600 in 2026.
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