The opportunity of Papua New Guinea

The Pacific region is vast and holds fantastic economic and social development opportunities.

ANZ is one of the biggest banks servicing the region across markets including Fiji, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Kiribati, Cook Islands, Vanuatu and Timor Leste.

"Our presence there goes right back to 1910 and outside of our home markets of Australia and New Zealand, PNG is one of the oldest franchise in our network."

We also have a business servicing Institutional corporate clients in one of our nearest and most important neighbours – Papua New Guinea.

ANZ has a long history of serving clients and facilitating trade around the Asia Pacific region and the world. We are focused on helping our customers move goods and services around the region.

Facilitating this type of trade and investment has been in our DNA since the early 1800s when our predecessor banks financed the movement of goods between Great Britain and Australia.

We’re approaching our 200^th year in 2028 and for more than half of that time, we’ve been operating in PNG.

Our presence there goes right back to 1910 and outside of our home markets of Australia and New Zealand, PNG is one of the oldest franchises in our network.

Recently I had the chance to visit Papua New Guinea for the first time in five years to open our new head office there. ANZ may look similar to our domestic banking peers, but our business is quite different.

We are the most outwardly focused of the Australian banks with an international footprint across 29 markets around the world. We have deep expertise connecting Australian, New Zealand and Asia Pacific businesses and people with global opportunities.

While the trade networks are more complex and multifaceted these days compared to 1910, the same themes remain important and business relationships on the ground are crucial.

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Economic diversity

The geographic spread of our business makes it hard for me to visit all our locations. However my visit to PNG is the seventh country I’ve been to in our network this year.

And I have plans to visit our staff and customers in three more countries before the end of the year – Singapore, for our 50th anniversary celebrations, as well as Fiji and Samoa. 

It’s important for me as CEO to experience and see the cultural and economic diversity of the markets in which we operate – and PNG is no exception.

With more than 800 languages spoken within its borders, PNG is one of the most culturally diverse nations in the world. On the economic front, it is very different to other Pacific countries – in terms of its size, scale and the opportunity it presents.

PNG’s economy is more than two and half times the size of all eight of the other Pacific nation’s economies in which ANZ operates. 

ANZ’s economists predict the PNG economy will not only grow, but at least double over the next decade.

Most of that growth will come from industries including food, beverage and agriculture; resources, energy and infrastructure as well as a host of diversified industrial companies.

Interestingly, these sectors mirror some of the priority market segments in our Australian business. PNG’s largest trading partners include Australia, China, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan.

Within ANZ, the PNG business sits in our Institutional division, given the bulk of customers we service there are big corporate clients. Despite this, the business has strong connections with the Pacific given its location.

Focusing on better serving those Institutional customers has allowed us to play a role in boosting economic growth in PNG.

We are the only corporate bank in this market with such an extensive network across Asia and the Pacific, including a physical presence in each of PNG’s largest trading partner countries, allowing us to facilitate trade and capital flows.

This helps connect the world to PNG and, in turn, helps connect PNG to the world. This allows PNG to tap into foreign investment, deep insight, new products and digital innovation.

We are systemically important to PNG, holding as much as 50 per cent of the total system liquidity which allows the banking sector and economy to operate daily.

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Climate infrastructure

Another potential area of growth in and around PNG is in sustainable finance. The Asian Development Bank estimates the Asia Pacific region will require about US$210 billion each year until 2030 to meet its climate-resilient infrastructure needs alone.

ANZ is a leader in sustainable finance and our team has an objective of issuing $100 billion in support of social and environmental outcomes. This could allow ANZ to play a leading role in shaping and supporting sustainability investments in PNG.

But we also take our role in the community seriously. Since 2010 more than 10,000 Papua New Guinean’s have taken part in financial literacy training through our MoneyMinded program, which increases financial inclusion and capability.

We also think deeply about our staff in this region, what they need from their workplace and how they remain firmly connected to the rest of ANZ’s network.

In 2020 COVID-19 changed the way most people around the world worked. This made us conduct research into the future of the workplace.

People wanted increased connection to each other and the community, a healthy, engaging workplace that supports wellbeing and a place for continual learning that fosters innovation.

For such a widespread network as ANZ’s in the Pacific, this was crucial and our new PNG office reflects that.

We look forward to continued prosperity between Australia and Papua New Guinea and helping our nearest neighbour to achieve its goals.

Shayne Elliott is CEO of ANZ.