Bank’s Bonus Bonds holdup leaves house hunter stranded.

ANZ’s Bonus Bonds delay leaves a househunter stranded as property prices drift out of his reach, writes Rob Stock.

‘‘We genuinely regret any confusion we’ve caused you.’’ ANZ letter to Wahid Zaman

Wellingtonian Wahid Zaman is still waiting for his Bonus Bonds money from ANZ, and he says it is cost him the chance of owning a house an affordable price.

On October 8 last year, ANZ sent him, and hundreds of thousands of others, an email saying Bonus Bonds was closing, the largest single winding up of a fund in New Zealand history, with $3.25 billion to be handed back to investors.

ANZ gave Zaman two options: Take his money immediately, getting $1 back for each $1 Bonus Bond he owned, or leave his money invested for ‘‘up to 12 months’’, and get a share in the reserves of the fund.

Zaman opted to leave his money in, but more than 12 months on, he has not got it back. ANZ blames the delay on Covid, a shortage of IT staff and the need to invest in IT systems to make repayments to investors.

The delay became a propertybuyer’s nightmare for Zaman. ANZ pre-approved a mortgage for him, and he made two offers on homes, which both relied on him getting his Bonus Bonds money by October 31, before ANZ realised its mistake.

Unable to bid on homes, Zaman looked on in frustration as house prices in Wellington moved up.

‘‘I’m completely priced out of those properties. I can’t even think of buying those properties because prices have gone up so much,’’ he said.

In a letter on November 29, ANZ acknowledged the information it gave around the timing of the Bonus Bonds payout was ‘‘confusing’’, and accepted Zaman believed he would get his money by the end of October.

‘‘We genuinely regret any confusion we’ve caused you,’’ the bank told him.

ANZ also apologised for approving the loan, saying it should have realised he would not get his Bonus Bonds money in time.

ANZ, which made a profit of just under $2b in the year ending September 31, also apologised for its slow response to Zaman’s complaints. It offered him compensation and reimbursement of costs of $3000, which he said was not enough.

‘‘This doesn’t seem right or fair at all,’’ he said.

‘‘Now I don’t even bother going to open homes any more because I’m completely priced out. The lending offer they had originally made shouldn’t have been done. It was a mistake on their part, because (a part) of the deposit money was still locked in.’’

He tried through a mortgage broker to get finance, but was unable to.

Without his money, he could not borrow from ANZ or any other bank.

In a statement to the Sunday Star-Times, ANZ said the expected wind-up date in the emails sent to investors in October last year was ‘‘indicative’’.

‘‘No specific deadline was set for payment,’’ a spokeswoman said.

‘‘We expect to make payment of $1.10 for each Bonus Bond to all domestic and international bondholders, who have provided their current bank account details, before Christmas,’’ she said.

‘‘During the year we have kept investors updated via our annual report and website that our expected payment date had moved to December.’’

The delay in paying Bonus Bonds investors their money was not caused by any difficulties in selling the bonds and bank deposits it invested in.

‘‘Making payments has required significant changes to the Bonus Bonds technology systems. This has taken some time as it’s important that it was done right,’’ the spokeswoman said.

‘‘We’ve also had to manage through the disruption of Covid19 lockdowns and an industrywide shortage of specialist technology staff.’’

Zaman believes ANZ provided him with misleading information about an investment, causing him financial loss, and has complained to the Financial Markets Authority (FMA).

‘‘It’s clearly a breach of the legislation,’’ Zaman said. ‘‘They can’t publish one piece of information in one place, and another in a different place.

‘‘If they provided me with the complete information in the beginning, I wouldn’t have left my money with them in the first place.’’

He said other Bonus Bonds investors would have been caught like him.

The FMA said it could not comment on complaints.