EQT gains ANZ Private Bank estate planning referrals

A decision by ANZ to cease its estate planning business from the end of June this year will see nearly 6,000 wills transferred to Equity Trustees.

The arrangement will also see ANZ Private Bank now refer clients requiring estate planning and trustee services to EQT.

The arrangement has been confirmed by both ANZ and Equity Trustees and follows on from EQT’s acquisition of the ANZ Trustees business a decade ago.

Announcing the move, EQT said the addition of the ANZ will bank would expand the Equity Trustees will bank to be one of the largest in Australia after it had alredy been boosted by the firm’s acquisition of Australian Executor Trustees in December, 2022.

Commenting on the move, EQT’s executive general manager, Trustee and Wealth Services, Ian Westley said the company represented a natural home for those clients and their wills given many already had relationships with EQT.

“The will bank now holds the wills of more than 200,000 Australians, cementing our place as Australia’s leading executor, trustee and estate planning services provider,” he said.

“While thousands of law firms around the country also create wills and estate plans and hold them for safekeeping, none have our volume and few would have a record of nearly 140 years of providing continuous service and security for those documents.”

“The value of this continuity of service becomes clear when you understand that many wills contain instructions to establish philanthropic trusts – and appoint a trustee to manage that trust in perpetuity. Examples include the Sylvia and Charles Viertel Charitable Foundation, the William Buckland Foundation and the JO and JR Wicking Trust,” said Westley.