Asia retail, wealth sale positive for institutional business: Whelan

Whelan told BlueNotes on video from Hong Kong while there was some small overlap there would essentially be no direct impact on the institutional strategy but it would allow greater concentration on opportunities where ANZ had a competitive advantage.

"This just means greater focus on our institutional business."
Mark Whelan, Group Executive, Institutional

“It’s a net positive,” he said.

The parallel project of restructuring institutional, reducing risk-weighted assets and improving productivity was about eight months ahead of schedule, Whelan said.

The reduction in RWAs was concentrated in low-yielding assets and on customers who didn’t utilise the full value of the ANZ offering in the region.

ANZ will now focus on the group’s core Asian business in institutional where it is ranked a top-four corporate bank with a significant ongoing presence in 15 Asian countries and $A43 billion in gross lending assets.

“It is a reshaping strategy, without question,” Whelan said. “We see significant opportunity in all those businesses (where ANZ has competitive advantage including trade finance, debt capital markets, transaction banking).”

“We are winning mandates daily in Asia and across the region with customers who want those services from us.”

For more on how ANZ is refocussing and growing its Asian business, watch the video.

Paul Edwards is Group General Manager, Corporate Communications at ANZ and Publisher at BlueNotes