ANZ

Judges’ comment

The work that ANZ has undertaken around plain English is heartening. It’s fabulous that the bank sees itself as a leader in dragging other financial institutions towards plain English. This is commendable. Please keep it up.

You have used a very positive and respectful approach to introducing plain English to staff. Your user testing is very thorough and you’ve become very good at training and supporting your staff with, for example, checklists and editorial services.

The volume of material that you’ve re-written is impressive. You’ve used customer and stakeholder feedback, along with impending regulatory change, to underpin your plain English initiatives.

We get the sense that plain English is taking root in pockets within the bank — especially within the Wealth and Consumer Law Reform teams—but we would have liked to see more evidence that it’s taking root throughout the rest of the bank too.

Media statement

ANZ is delighted to be a finalist for Plain English Champion — Best Organisation.

We want to make life easier for our 2 million customers and help them reach their financial goals. We want our customers to have access to information that’s easy to read and understand.

We are proud to have been nominated for so many awards for plain English this year. Our commitment to plain English communications stretches back several years, so it’s great to be recognised for our efforts to help customers make well-informed financial decisions. This year, we’ve launched an impressive number of plain English documents, including all our consumer credit contracts for home and personal loans, credit cards, and overdrafts.

The WriteMark Awards are a fantastic way to promote plain English standards throughout New Zealand. We’d like to thank WriteMark and the sponsors for supporting this movement.