On the same day that Westpac Chief Executive Brian Hartzer resigned to take responsibility for the money laundering scandal, ANZ Banking Group was lauded by the Australian Federal Police in Perth for helping to seize a suspected Chinese criminal’s wealth.

Due to ANZ’s rapid-fire response to requests from the AFP Criminal Assets Confiscation Taskforce, a total of $2.24 million was recovered in deposits suspected of being criminal proceeds.

The task force is a joint effort by the AFP, the Australian Commission on Criminal Intelligence, the Tax Office, and AUSTRAC.

A day after ANZ’s AFP herogram, the bank’s chief risk officer, Kevin Corbally, told the ASX that a study of its money laundering, extremism, human trafficking, tax evasion, and child exploitation systems and processes had found “no substantive problems to date.”

“ANZ has been working with AUSTRAC, law enforcement and the broader industry to detect, prevent and disrupt serious financial crimes,” Corbally said.

The bank did not issue the statement to take the moral high ground. It was done in response to a flood of questions from investors meeting president David Gonski as he did the rounds before the December 17 annual meeting of ANZ.

The market was seeking reassurance that an AUSTRAC case would not affect ANZ. Considering the Commonwealth Bank paid a $700 million fine for violations of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act, the concern is understandable.

Westpac is set to be hit with a $1 billion fine and National Australia Bank is working with AUSTRAC to resolve a range of issues first published in 2017.