The bank says it is giving fair treatment of clients top billing with a senior appointment and creation of a new role to drive standards.

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group has appointed Colin Neave as its customer fairness director, a new role to ensure the lender’s products for retail, small firms and wealth clients are handled more sensitively, including issues around fees and protection of vulnerable individuals.

Neave reports to Shayne Elliott, ANZ’s chief executive, the bank said in a statement. Neave will be based in Melbourne and start the role early next year.

As part of the appointment, Neave will shortly leave his role as Commonwealth Ombudsman, ANZ said. Neave is a former chief ombudsman of the Financial Ombudsman Service, the Australian Banking Industry Ombudsman, and holder of other similar positions.

“This is a significant new appointment designed to help us more consistently deliver fair and responsible banking to our retail and small business customers,” Elliott said. “Colin’s deep experience in financial services, examining and resolving the most difficult of issues, makes him the ideal person to provide us with frank and independent assessments of the fairness of our products and services. This includes the impact they have on customers, particularly those in vulnerable situations,” he said.

“As a first step Colin will be to help us establish our remediation principles so that we have a consistent set of standards we stick to when things do go wrong. He will also conduct a Fairness Review of our core retail deposit and credit products to ensure they continue to operate fairly, including their fees and charges,” Elliott said.