Ombudsman preparing for flood of ING investors

Banking ombudsman Deborah Battell. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The Banking Ombudsman expects to receive up to 300 requests for help with additional compensation claims from investors who placed their money in ING's frozen funds on advice of the ANZ.

The bank wrote to investors who applied to have extra compensation on top of the ING settlement before Christmas with individual offers.

Around 2900 ANZ customers were caught in the ING Diversified Yield Fund and Regular Income Funds.

Banking ombudsman Deborah Battell said she believed around 1200 of those investors had applied for a top-up on the ING settlement offer and investors had been given two months to accept it.

But it was unclear yet how many would reject the offer and seek extra help from the ombudsman.

Battell said many investors had not received their offer until late December and may have been away over the holiday break.

"We won't know the full extent until the end of February."

However, Battell said she expected several hundred to ask for help.

"At the moment we are thinking a maximum of 300 people," she said.

That would put the acceptance levels at around 90 per cent of the ANZ investors.

The office has hired three more staff to help it work through the ING complaints faster.

Battell said she could have handled the queries with existing staff but the office wanted to cut down the wait time.

"We want to take on extra staff to make sure everyone can have their case assessed - so we can get a resolution by June 30."

Around 13,000 investors had their money frozen in the two funds in March 2008 until a partial settlement offer was made in July last year.

Most accepted the offer, a condition of which was that they take no legal action in relation to the funds.

ING investors were offered the chance to apply for additional compensation but those who did not come through the ANZ were not, even though ING was 49 per cent owned by the ANZ at the time.

Since then ANZ has acquired all of ING New Zealand.

The Commerce Commission has been investigating ING and the ANZ over the way the funds were sold since December 2008 and is expected to make a decision on whether to pursue legal action against the companies by March.