ING investors protest over freezing of funds

About 15 people waved protest placards outside the ANZ Bank on Tauranga's Spring St yesterday, protesting the freezing of their ING investment funds and calling for a full reimbursement.
The majority of the protesters, from the Tauranga "Frozen Funds" group, had money invested in secure term deposits with the bank, but claim they were convinced by ANZ financial advisers to transfer their money into the ING Diversified Yield Fund (DYF) or Regular Income Fund (RIF).
The funds were allegedly described to the investors as being "safe and secure" investment options, returning 1 or 2 per cent more than their existing term deposits.
However, in March last year the funds were frozen, because of the effects of the global credit crisis. The value of the funds subsequently plunged to around 20 per cent of their original worth. Nationwide, about 8000 people had been affected by the funds freeze.
The organiser of the Tauranga protest, Bruce Malpas, said investors were never told at the time that ANZ owned a 49 per cent stake in ING New Zealand.
"Had we known that, we might have thought twice," he said.
While reluctant to disclose how much money he had frozen with ING, Mr Malpas said "it would've been enough to have bought a new car."
Mr Malpas felt ANZ needed to take its share of the blame for the investors' current problems.
"ANZ is by no means an innocent party in all of this. We think that they've got a responsibility.
"We're obviously going to take a hit and we think that ANZ and ING should also take a hit."
He said because of Tauranga's older population, a lot of elderly investors had been affected.
ANZ last week revealed its "final" offer to affected investors.
They could choose to either sell their units and take cash up front at 60c per DYF unit and 62c an RIF unit, or invest the cash in an on-call savings account for a guaranteed annual interest rate of 8.3 per cent for the next five years.
However, those who agreed to the deal had to waive their rights to make a claim or take legal action involving the funds.
ING and ANZ had jointly committed about $400 million to the settlement.
Another of yesterday's protesters, Tauranga man Wayne Smith, also had "several thousands" of dollars frozen - money which he said was earmarked "for my retirement, and security."
He said the current situation was not satisfactory for investors.
"We certainly feel a bit ticked off about it, especially when they (the ING funds), were meant to be low to medium risk."
Mr Smith described the offer as "not good enough", and said he would like to see investors paid out "dollar for dollar."
Another investor, 85-year-old Ross Fleming said he had $100,000 frozen, money he had hoped to spend with his children and grandchildren.
Mr Fleming said he was "a bit pissed off" with the situation.
Katikati woman Val Panther also held her own protest.
Mrs Panther this week sat outside Katikati's ANZ Bank with a placard stating "Be aware about investing with ANZ-ING. I listened to their advice and lost my hard-earned life savings. Financial advisers are only well-paid salespersons selling a bank's products for their own gain."
When her fund was frozen in April 2008, she was told she had $45,000 in her name. She had since been told in a letter she only had $14,000 left.
- with APN News and Media