This follows a decision by ANZ to cease its estate planning service from the end of June 2024 and comes 10 years after Equity Trustees acquired the ANZ Trustees business.

The addition of the ANZ will bank expands Equity Trustees’ existing will bank to be one of the largest in the country -recently boosted through the acquisition of Australian Executor Trustees (AET) in December 2022.

“Equity Trustees represents a natural home for those clients and their wills given that a number of them already have relationships with Equity Trustees – largely because of trustee or executor appointments in their estate planning documents,” said Ian Westley, EGM, Trustee and Wealth Services, Equity Trustees.

“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 Mr Westley.

As part of the arrangement, ANZ Private Bank will now refer clients requiring estate planning and trustee services to Equity Trustees.

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