ANZ Bank has agreed to an independent review of its OnePath financial services businesses after breaches resulted in $4.5 million worth of compensation and refunds to customers.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) said the breaches, which ANZ self-reported, affected around 1.3 million customers between early-2013 and mid-2015.

The bank was also subject to a further $49 million worth of rectifications and other remediation.

• Super tax cuts in May budget: Morrison
• What’s wrong with CommBank?
• CBA’s errors over heart attacks

ANZ’s OnePath business provides superannuation, funds management, life and general insurance products.

Breaches included failure to provide disclosure documents for some insurance products, processing errors and inadequate systems or processes.

ASIC said OnePath failed to follow up 21,000 unbanked cheques, which were issued for insurance claims, superannuation benefits and refunds of premiums.

The regulator said $2.9 million has been returned to customers as a result, but a further $11.6 million remains unclaimed.

ANZ also provided more than $400,000 in compensation for lost earnings and incorrect fees in relation to superannuation members who had contributions placed into the incorrect account by the bank.

These errors affected 1,422 fund members and $28.7 million in contributions.

“While the majority of these compliance breaches are in the past, we know we can do better,” said ANZ’s wealth Australia managing director Alexis George in a statement.

“We would like to apologise to impacted customers and assure them we’ve been working hard to improve our controls.

“We’ve also taken significant additional steps to strengthen our compliance systems, including targeted external audits and additional staff training to improve monitoring, reporting and governance.”

In a statement, ASIC acknowledged the co-operative approach ANZ has taken in this matter, including ensuring that breaches were notified.

The bank has agreed to an independent review of its compliance frameworks by Pricewaterhouse Coopers.

ASIC said it will also continue monitoring the rectification of any breaches that had yet to be fixed.

“Appropriate compliance and systems to monitor compliance are essential for banks to adhere to their AFS [Australian Financial Services licence] obligations,” said ASIC’s deputy chair Peter Kell in a statement.

“This is important in maintaining customer trust and confidence in the sector.”

-ABC